


Turn Around

by natashawitch



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Developing Relationship, Deviates From Canon, Healing, M/M, Mark of Cain, Season/Series 10, Slow Build, Trust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-09
Updated: 2015-08-23
Packaged: 2018-03-06 21:07:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 31,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3148562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/natashawitch/pseuds/natashawitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happens when you come across someone you never thought you would see again? Someone you never wanted to see again, but someone who knows your most intimate secrets and fears? What happens when they are the only person you can confide in, when they are the only one who will listen without judgment?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In the beginning

**Author's Note:**

> I am constantly flattered that anyone likes my scribbles. I am also very protective of said scribbles. Recently I’ve had to engage with Goodreads to have some of my works removed, after they were posted without my knowledge. I love when my stories are rec’d, linked to communities, used for rp, or listed on tumblr or LJ. Thank you to those who have done so, but if anyone wishes to share, copy, translate, or post my tales elsewhere, please ask me about it first. 
> 
> Disclaimer: I don’t own Supernatural or its characters. No copyright infringement intended. Just playing in the sandbox.
> 
> Also I am not American, so apologies in advance for any honourables, colours, cheques, wardrobes, and sweet biscuits which escape editing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ++++++++++++++++++++++++SPNSPNSPN++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> 
>  
> 
> _“Turn Around, bright eyes. Every now and then I fall apart.” Bonnie Tyler: Total Eclipse of the Heart_

+++++++++++++++++++++++SPNSPNSPN+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Sam wrapped his hand around a tall paper cup of hot coffee, the heat seeping though his skin, as airport announcements wafted above his head. A nerve hopped in his knee. He rapidly tapped his heel to dispel it. 

Leaving his brother alone in the Men of Letters’ bunker was a plan that did not sit well, like an ill-fitting coat. Worries needled Sam all though the long hours of his absence. However it would have been an even worse idea to deny Garth and Bess an ancient gryphon slaying stone knife. Garth had called Dean’s phone for assistance, unaware of all that had gone down. It was Sam who answered. He had thought that Garth was out, but hunting always found a way to drag someone back in. Not that Garth sounded pissed; rather he was full of wonder that a mythical creature had been secreted inside a scrub hidden cave nearby their home. The werewolf couple had trapped the creature using a mixture of blind luck and hunter instincts after it attacked some pups who had playfully stumbled into its lair. Using the Men of Letters’ cross index, Sam quickly identified their catch and discovered the society held such a weapon in one of its vast rooms of sealed boxes. Sam would never have denied the Fitzgerald’s his aid, added to which was an imagining of Dean’s apoplectic reaction if he ever discovered that he had left their friend hanging in the wind. The distance to Grantsburg made driving out of the question, and Garth needed the knife yesterday. A stone artifact placed in hold luggage would not set Homeland Security on Sam’s ass, and flying meant Sam could go and return in one very long day.

A quick handover in arrivals, words of appreciation, a stiffly received Garth-hug, and a silent response to the presumption that Dean refused to board a plane, saw Sam turnabout for the next flight back to Lincoln. 

Grabbing ten minutes in the food court to catch his breath and triple shot caffeinate, Sam was vibrating with urgency to get back to Lebanon. He had caught two hours of shut eye the night before, burning the midnight oil with research and rechecking everything before he had departed for his morning flight to Minneapolis St Paul. 

The sky had darkened while Sam had been occupied by baggage collection and coffee. A chill wind coaxed him to button up his canvas jacket. Fumbling in his pocket for the Impala keys, Sam’s hyper senses picked up a tall slouching hooded figure leaning against the pedestrian entry to the short term car park. His heart rate kicked up, alert and ready. Closing the distance, through the gloom, Sam could pick out dirt streaked denims and long hands holding a Dixie cup seeking change. A weird vague familiarity set Sam even further on edge. He slid his hand down his thigh seeking his knife, but every goddamned weapon was locked in the trunk. All he had was a packet of salt in his pocket and a bottle of holy water zipped inside his duffel. Plenty of times demons had hidden in meatsuits of indigent poor or the God Squad had used itinerant preachers to spy on humanity and the Winchesters. This dude did not bear any bible or cardboard sign declaring Sam’s immortal soul to be in need of salvation. Nor did the slumped guy seem tensed to attack. All that meant bupkiss. Perhaps he was an innocent civilian but as Sam took each pace closer his wariness grew. Fingers twitching in preparation of hand to hand combat, the hunter squared his shoulders. He sucked a breath as the air seemed to crackle invisibly in the shortening space between them. The guy jerked as if the inexplicable static impacted him. 

Sam startled as the stranger’s heels slipped and slid, balance lost, long legs flaying out, butt hitting pavement.

A hoarse gasp, “Sam.”

Not a challenge, not a snarl, but almost a plea, as the guy curled away from him.

Quick as, Sam dropped to his knees. If this was a ruse, he had nothing but his fist and a Latin exorcism at his disposal. Remaining on guard, the hunter tentatively placed his wide palm on the shoulder of the fallen man’s filthy hoodie.

“How do you know me? Who are you?” He demanded with firm command, “Look at me.”

Unfurling painstakingly slow, every inched movement communicating bodily pain, shame and reluctance, Gadreel twisted his body to gaze upward.

Sam snapped back his hand back, as if burned. He pulled up onto the balls of his feet. His breath hitched, eyes dilated, adrenaline hopped. It wasn’t possible. Gadreel was dead, blown to pieces in an ultimate act of self sacrifice according to Castiel.

“You?” Sam panted his question.

A clatter of high heeled footfalls came in their direction from the terminal building. Rapid friendly conversation drifted their way.

“Please.” Gadreel begged, not meeting Sam’s eyes fully, head inclined to his knees.

“Is it you?” Sam double-blinked. Maybe this wasn’t the angel but the other poor bastard who had the privilege of being Gadreel’s go-to vessel.

“It is I.” The angel muttered.

“Have you a weapon?”

Gadreel stared at him blankly.

“Do you have an angel blade?” Sam demanded urgently.

Pupils dilated with headshake was enough denial. 

“Right.” Sam extended a hand.

Gadreel took it gingerly with a grime marked paw. Sam used his free hand to heft the angel, or former angel, or fallen one, whatever. Gadreel bent double to retrieve his scattered hoard of coins and single dollar bills.

“Leave it.” Sam snapped. The women’s footfalls were loud and close. They had stopped speaking. Whether this was due to a natural pause in their chat, the sight of two tall giants rising from the sidewalk, or more nefarious reasons, Sam was not waiting to find out. 

“Come on.” He had to practically drag the angel towards the car, while battling against a state of disbelief that he was willingly bringing the asshat with him. 

As Sam popped the trunk to the deposit the duffel he had used as hold luggage and to palm an angel blade, he addressed the shaking celestial being, who was bent double against the flank of the Chevy. 

“Thought you were toast.”

Gadreel raised his head and one brow.

“Took one for the team, Cas said. Angel dynamite?”

“I did.”

“And?”

“I woke, naked, alone, in a garbage tip in Iowa.”

Sam hummed. A visceral memory of Chuck removing a molar from his hair hit him in the chest. Raphael had blown chunks of Castiel all over the prophet and his home. Their friend had carved a banishing symbol to his chest, been liquefied by Leviathan, and Lucifer had used Sam’s own fingers to snap him out of existence, yet each time Cas returned. Perhaps it was not so astounding that Gadreel should persist beyond his supposed final act.

“Why are you here?”

“I do not know, Sam. I was pulled in this direction.”

For a moment, Sam thought he was being taken completely literally, regarding how he had tugged Gadreel from his begging post to the car.

“You still got your juice?” Sam sighed, shaking his head to bury any creepy questions about Gadreel being drawn towards him.

“Yes. My grace is intact.”

“I suppose that is something. And the dude, is he still in there, living one of your holodeck fantasy worlds?” The question was asked with more bitterness than Sam intended.

“No. No, he, he didn’t make it.” Gadreel gulped and looked to the far chain-link fence.

Sam harrumphed. He slammed the trunk. His anger spiked for the poor schmuck who had lost his life as a casualty for the greater fight.

“Well, are you coming?” Sam barked.

Gadreel stared with comically wide eyes and a dropped jaw.

“You think I am going to leave a rogue angel loose at Lincoln Airport? Get the Hell into to car.”

The angel scrambled round to the shotgun side. Sam winced as he caught sight of worn through trainers, maybe found in a garbage bag. As Gadreel adjusted his body into the seat, Sam became uncomfortably aware that his passenger needed a shower as a matter of urgency. 

“Mojo present, but faulty?”

“Excuse me?” Gadreel was nonplussed by the question and the seatbelt catch.

Sam rolled his eyes as he leaned sideways to assist.

“Automated dry clean?”

“Oh?” Gadreel plucked at the neck of his chocolate brown tee. He sniffed rather dramatically, before inspecting his clothing as if only in that moment he became aware of his garments. “I smell appalling.”

“You stink.” Sam’s lips twitched unbidden into a semi-smile.

A marginal glow to his right got Sam flicking his eyes from the car park exit. Gadreel was in similar attire but his clothes looked new. He was clean shaven. The normal Impala aromas were augmented by a familiar bonus of fresh woody sap and clean petrichor. 

“Huh,” Sam huffed, tongue rolling into his cheek.

Gadreel squinted at him, “Is this acceptable?”

“What? Sure, Man, it’s good.” Sam stayed silent until they reached the highway. “In the bunker, not the real one, y’know? The fake one when…”

“When I was in control.” Gadreel stated baldly in a monotone voice.

“Then.” Sam shifted uncomfortably. What was he doing with his fricking captor in the car? The angel who had healed him as promised, who had blown himself to pieces for their and Castiel’s cause, who might want to jump into his bones right now to make himself at home again, to render Sam clueless and into a state where he felt he was losing his precious grip on reality once more.

“Sam?”

Gadreel’s voice pulled him back. He had almost missed his turn off.

Expelling a long slow breath, Sam picked up where he had halted. “That scent… it surrounded me when… It was like the outdoors had come inside… it would tingle my senses,” He huffed at his own susceptibility, “I freaking looked up ghost residues and paranormal clairalience crapola in the fake illusionary bunker library.”

“I know. I remember.”

“It was you? The scent of your grace?”

Gadreel nodded. “Grace in its pure form is beyond human comprehension, yet your minds will perceive it as light, substance, sound, and flavor.”

“I get it.” Sam shuddered, shaking out memories of ancient packed ice, solar winds, and lightning strike ozone choking the back of his throat. “Fresh pruned twigs, rain, and growing trees – better and surprising.”

“I was the gatekeeper of The Garden.” Gadreel’s head dropped. He became fascinated by his upturned palms.

“I was there.” Sam remarked.

“You were?”

“Part of upstairs’ schemes to make us play our End of Days’ roles. Expressway elevator ride courtesy of Zachariah. I have to say, Dude, The Garden wasn’t all that impressive. Cleveland Botanical Gardens and not when they are in bloom.”

Gadreel’s shoulders shook. He issued a throaty laugh.

Sam threw him a disbelieving look, about to ask if he was seriously laughing. He shut his mouth when the angel spoke.

“Remember what I said about human perception?”

“Joshua said that too.” Sam nodded.

“Joshua.” Gadreel said in a hushed drawn out whisper. With a choked pained noise he asked, “He remains?”

“Well, he did before the civil war and the fall.” Sam was about to speculate on the likelihood of Heaven’s gardener surviving through chaos, but he saw a sad hope in Gadreel’s eye, and could not do it.

“I had hope. In the early times, before it was extracted from me, that perhaps Joshua would…” Gadreel’s voice dried up. He coughed. “My crime was deemed too heinous by all.”

Sam’s lips drew tight. He huffed with a shrug. “The forgiveness of Heaven, huh, doesn’t work for heavenly beings.”

“I gave him access, let him in…” Gadreel shook his head. “It is a very old story.”

“The oldest.” Sam quirked a grin. Meeting Gadreel’s eye, he added ruefully, “I opened the final seal and I let him in…”

“No. Sam. You must not compare. You saved the world. You sacrificed…”

“And you didn’t?” Sam found irrational anger flaring inside. “You should be atomic particles now. Don’t think I have forgotten a moment of what happened, but just because you have done wrong, does not drown out the right.”

“You have depth of soul.”

Sam laughed. “I presume that was a compliment.”

“You would be correct.” Gadreel inclined his head. 

Their strange conversation lapsed. Sam flicked on the radio, and away from classic rock, finding smooth inoffensive classical to break the silence. Gadreel twisted his body, finding groves that many years of Sam snoozes had impressed in the shotgun seat. 

Turning South at Red Cloud, Sam was on the final stretch home. He stole a glance right, asking silently if he knew what he was doing in bringing the angel back to the bunker.


	2. Suspension

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _“Don’t make me sad, don’t make me cry, Sometimes love is not enough and the road gets tough, I don’t know why.”_ Born to Die, Lana Del Rey.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++SPNSPNSPN++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Sam placed a bowl of Kraft Mac and Cheese and a bottle of beer on the ground outside Dean’s bedroom door. He straightened up with a sigh. The MOL 1951 Cadillac Coupe, Dean’s pet project, gathered dust in the garage. The array of spell work texts that Sam had begun to comb through for leads remained in neat piles on the library table. If Dean had ventured out, there was no immediate evidence.

“Dean?” He knocked. 

There was no reaction. Sam swallowed. He did not want to break the door down, but he needed to know that his brother had not vanished.

“Dean?” He rapped his knuckles again. “Dean?”

Feeling like an idiotic slow-mo impression of Sheldon Cooper, Sam leaned his shoulder against the door. “Dean? Dean, I’m back… You in there, Man?”

Chair legs scraped on the floor. Sam expelled a small sigh of relief. He guessed his brother was present, alive and not laying on the bed. He would prefer if Dean took his desire for solitude to target practice, the garage, or at this stage even the dusty crates of whiskey bottles. Shove it all down, deny it, and engage in perpetual motion were Dean’s normal ways of dealing; continuous hunts, a spike in pie consumption, snarky remarks of repressed anger, hitting bars hard, crossing the country at his Baby’s wheel. Understandably the threat of losing control to the Mark of Cain meant that Dean was consciously avoiding anything that could make him slip. 

Sam got it. The sensation of demon blood pulsing through his veins empowering him, making him feel like he was invincible, and wrong, so very very wrong, was etched in his memory. For Sam there had been terrifying exhilaration. With Dean it was plain terrifying. When Sam closed his eyes, late at night slumped in a library chair, projected onto the back of his eyelids was the image of blood splattered and confused Dean surrounded by the men he had slaughtered. He would do anything, any-freaking-thing, to help his brother get through this, but for now, Dean was not letting him in. Coming out for a _chick flick_ talk was not on Dean’s agenda.

“There’s food outside, when you’re ready.” Sam bit the fleshy inside of his lip. Should he tell Dean that there was an angel hovering in their kitchen? He shook his head. He would cross that bridge when he came to it. “Right then. Good.”

Strain must have played across his face, because when he returned to the kitchen, Gadreel tilted his head and squinted at Sam.

“Where is Dean?”

“He’s in his room.” Sam tried for his best expressionless face, hoping Gadreel would have mercy and not probe for details.

The angel nodded. He took a step closer to the table, making way for Sam to enter the room properly. Gadreel had not sat down, nor leaned against the counter, or removed his hoodie. He looked as uncomfortable and as awkward as a destitute homeless angel could in the home of the guy whose body he had possessed for months without his consent. 

“Dean attacked you here.” Sam blinked away the memory of Mark of Cain enraged Dean slashing Gadreel with the first blade.

The angel’s hand drifted to his midsection. 

“Wrongs were committed.” He paused, leaving the acts he had committed under Metatron’s direction unsaid. A slight smile played on his lips, eyes softening as if happy for Sam, “Yet, Dean made it. Metatron was neutralized.”

Realizing that Gadreel’s knowledge ended mid-action of their two pronged attack plan, Winchesters to take out God’s Scribe while Castiel smashed the Angel Tablet, Sam nodded. “Metatron didn’t die….”

The words caught in Sam’s throat. 

Metatron lived. 

Dean died. 

Sam had carried his brother’s lifeless body from that place, had brought him home…

Gadreel did not notice that Sam’s thoughts had strayed. He tapped his ear to signify angel radio. “I heard. He is imprisoned.”

Sam clenched his jaw. He did not want to relive the nightmare of summoning Crowley, or walking into Room 11, finding only that note…

“Sam?”

“I’m good.” Sam lied. “Give me a moment.” 

Marching to the stove, Sam stared down at congealed Mac and Cheese. Its shiny skin mocked him, mocked his ability to take care of his brother, or anyone or anything.

Gadreel stood statue-like, waiting, observing, and almost hesitant to move. 

“Dean made it. In a way.” A burst of pain issued a bark of self-derisive laughter masked in a mutated single sob. Sam gripped the worktop tight enough to redden his fingertips.

The angel was at his side, inches of space between them, a barrier of air and inapproachability dividing them. Sam did not flinch or move away. Gadreel’s hand lifted. Sam watched as it wrapped around his bicep and squeezed just the right amount of silent support. After a few beats whirling desperation stilled to a raw basement wound. The hunter picked up the spoon to stir his meal.

“You want some? It’s from a box and sorta burnt.”

“I do not require sustenance, Sam.” The angel released his hold and took a pace to the side.

“I’m not hungry.” Sam caught the pot, shoving it under the faucet and tipping the chunky mix into the basin. “How about a whiskey?”

Gadreel raised his brows.

“In the library?” Sam suggested, walking that direction, leaving Gadreel to follow on his heels. Digging out the good stuff and two heavy lead crystal glasses, Sam poured two fingers into each. 

Without any protest about angelic immunity to alcohol, Gadreel took the proffered glass and copied Sam in downing the burning liquor. 

“Why did you take me?”

“What?” Sam puffed.

“Why did you return with me to here? To hold me here?”

“No. No, I don’t know why? I just… I couldn’t leave you there. You needed somewhere.” Sam floundered to explain it any better.

“It was a kindness.” Gadreel’s head tilted in query and an effort at comprehension. “Why are you being kind to me?”

Sam’s lips parted, taken aback. He had no prepared answer. Because no one got left behind? Because it went against Sam’s nature to be unnecessarily cruel? Because Gadreel had proved his bona fides? Because there was so much water under the bridge that it seemed churlish to hold grudges? Because Sam was a fool who was willing to give out second chances like candy? Knowing Winchester Luck the last option was the jackpot.

“Because I’m a wuss,” Sam laughed in self-mockery, “A woman once kidnapped me, tied me to her bed, drugged me, forced me to marry her, dealt with a demon, and when we parted, do you know what I said to her?”

“You forgave her.” Gadreel stated as if he was certain that was truth.

“I wouldn’t quite say that.” Sam ran a hand through his hair. “I told her she was a good person.”

With a gentle smile Gadreel quoted, “To err is human, to forgive, divine.”

Sam chuffed, “I don’t know whether to be surprised by your poetry knowledge, to be baffled by our return to the myth of heavenly forgiveness, or to be muddled by my placement in the divine category.”

“Perhaps all three are acceptable.” Gadreel commented, taking control of the whiskey and pouring precisely the same volume into each glass. “Perhaps it is evidence of your good soul.”

“My soul?” Sam scoffed. “That chewtoy?”

“Yes, that strong enduring compassionate one.” Gadreel lifted his glass. 

Sam stared as the angel raised his whiskey to eye level, toasting Sam’s soul. Unsure if he was meant to reciprocate by toasting Gadreel’s resurrected grace, Sam settled for wetting his lips. “Y’know, people say they have been through the wringer?”

The angel nodded, easing back into his library chair to listen.

“I feel that Dean and I, we have been pulled and strung through endless… does it ever stop?”

“I understand.” Gadreel intoned solemnly. 

Sam huffed. He lifted his head, seeing absolute sincerity in the green eyes meeting his. “Y’know, I think that you do.”

The air seemed taffy like, as if something had shifted between them. Sam would have said they had cleared the air, but that did not express the curious atmospheric shift. It wasn’t like when old foes bury the hatchet and part with a handshake, or when friends make up and go out for a beer to mend fences. This was weird and unfamiliar, a settling of comfortable companionable silence that Sam was almost nervous to pick at for fear it would shatter. He recognized it as similar to down times with Dean, to rare times when he had allowed pause to relax, to chill. Was he chilling with Gadreel? It seemed preposterous, yet Sam was loath to relinquish this moment of calm.

“Where’d’you want to sleep?” Sam eventually asked.

“I don’t sleep.”

“You can’t wander the halls all night. Not happening.” Sam referred to Gadreel’s habits while he had occupied Sam. 

Gadreel’s brow shot up, “How do you remember this?”

“I caught glimpses. Thought I was dreaming or sleepwalking. Put two and two together after…”

“I will not wander.” 

Sam twisted his lip. He believed the promise, but there was the possibility that Dean would wander, even if only to take another hour long shower or to filch Bing Bongs from the freezer. 

“What room do you want?” Sam persisted.

“I would like to spend the night in the gallery?” Gadreel’s pitch rose beseeching permission. His gaze flitted upwards to the telescope.

“All night?” Sam blurted, his brain spewing forth the question rather than the assent he had intended. “It’s cool. No problem. It’s kinda neat up there.”

“I would take a chair…”

“That’s fine, and there are some soft…”

“… rugs and throws in the linen storage.”

“Take one.” Sam gestured towards the distant room in compliance. 

“Cold does not affect me, but I will do so. Thank you, Sam.”

“Good night, Gadreel.” Sam eased his body out of his chair.

“Good night. Sleep well, Sam.”

For the first time, in a long time, defying his own expectation of restless unease, Sam did sleep long, sound and deep.

He woke to his brother’s loud screeching. “What the ever living fuck? Sam!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This would have been up an hour ago but I've been occupied by squeeing on twitter about Supernatural being renewed for Season 11... Yay!


	3. Break

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _“When you were here before, couldn't look you in the eye.”_ Creep, Radiohead.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++SPNSPNSPN++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

“Seriously, Sam? Seriously?” Dean exclaimed. “You found him begging at the airport?”

“Yes, Dean.” Sam’s jaw jutted stubbornly. He was holding onto his frayed patience while Dean parroted back salient points in the form of questions.

“And you thought it a bang up idea to bring him here?” Dean waved his arms about encompassing the bunker and the angel braced against an art deco pillar. 

It was clearly not a rhetorical question. Dean’s eyes piercingly waited for his little brother to answer. If their whole kit and caboodle situation wasn’t so far down the toilet, Sam might have indulged the flicker which his brain supplied of a similar expression on ten-year-old Dean’s freckled face as he demanded why Sam had eaten all their peanut butter. In this confrontational mood, the older Winchester did not have tolerance for wooly uncooked explanations.

“Obviously.” Sam sighed, pushing away niggling doubts. His eyes tracked Dean’s hand as it rubbed his Henley sleeve up and down over the Mark of Cain. Was Dean conscious he was making such motion?

“Why? Don’t we have enough crap stacked high on our plates?” Dean glared.

Sam bit his tongue, tempted to fall into bickering where he’d say something he would regret, maybe about how some of that crap involved wondering if Dean lose patience and find an angle grinder to cut off his own arm, or disappear…

“I will leave.” Gadreel volunteered, breaking the thick silence. He straightened up and took two paces towards the exit.

Sam slammed his arm out sideways to halt him. “No, you won’t.”

“He wants to go.” Dean challenged. “Leave him go.”

“Dean, he has nowhere to go.”

“Well, I don’t know,” Dean jeered, “how about… Heaven?”

“I fear I would not be welcome by many.”

“Do you?” Dean practically snarled. “Where have you been for the last whatever months?”

Gadreel tilted his head but did not immediately answer.

Dean continued, “You’ve been hiding, haven’t you? Yellow belied skulking at the fringes of humanity?”

“Dean!” Sam blurted. Dean could be harsh at times, but that was an assumption.

“No, Sam. Your brother is not wrong.” Gadreel took a deep breath, “It was prudent to exist where I would not attract attention. It was difficult to…”

Sam winced at the use of the term ‘exist’.

Dean however laughed a cold bitter rattle. “Not so plain and simple when it’s your ass, is it? Not such fun then, huh? Maybe you had better go, after all the bunker isn’t a place of safety. You got Cas coming back any day, and a Knight of Hell. Not safe here, Buddy. And this time Castiel is not getting put out in the cold, you hear me?”

“I would be happy to see Castiel.” Gadreel pushed back his shoulders adopting an even more angel-regimented pose.

“Would you? This time?” Dean snorted.

“Guys, what is this about?” Sam huffed. He felt like the aforementioned Castiel when he failed to get a popular culture reference, like his brother and Gadreel were speaking in some sort of angry code.

Gadreel answered, meeting Sam’s eye. “When I was here the first time, Castiel came seeking refuge and a place of safety. It is to my shame and sorrow that I would not risk my, nor your, life. I used the excuse that Castiel’s enemies might attack this location but in actuality I feared that he would know that I was not Ezekiel, perhaps recognize me, and it was too soon, my wounds were dreadful, your cellular burns only beginning to heal. I feared you would find out and expel me.”

Sam screwed up his brow in recollection and swiveled to his brother, “You said Cas wanted to leave.” He glanced back to Gadreel, “Are you two telling me that you both kicked him out?”

“It was you or him.” Dean tried. “I was between a rock and a …”

“I can’t believe it.” Sam tugged at his hair, “Dean, you said he wanted to go. Oh my God.”

“I know, but it was your life or his, Sammy.”

“Neither of you could trust him? Did you ever think of telling him? Letting him in on the terrible secret of my…” Sam choked. “I am not having this conversation with either of you.”

“I will go.” Gadreel’s head dropped despondently.

“Just…” Sam sighed long and his shoulders sagged. “Just go and wander the halls would you, Gadreel? And Dean go freaking eat some breakfast.”

“What are you gonna do?” Dean’s arms hung by his sides, unsure.

“I’m calling Cas.” Sam threw as his parting shot and marched to his bedroom, strides of temper or frustration eating distance down the long halls. It was pointless being angry now about that had happened to him. Dean dying in his arms, struck through by Metatron, had erased an awful lot of wrongs. He had forgiven his brother. Hearing Gadreel’s story and coming to terms with what happened, had brought him pretty much full way to forgiving the angel too. However when the wrong, the injustice, was perpetrated on another, Sam Winchester found it hard to forgive. Maybe it was how he had been raised, to hunt Azazel for vengeance, to fight on behalf of the victims of the supernatural, or maybe it was his internal moral compass, but hearing that Castiel had suffered because of Dean and Gadreel’s plan left a bitter vile taste in Sam’s mouth.

Looking into the black reflective surface of his TV, Sam brought Cas’s contact details up. Of course, the universe proved as Anti-Winchester as normal, and Sam only got Castiel’s fumbled growly request to leave a voicemail.

“Hey Cas. It’s Sam. Don’t freak out. Dean is... he is the same. We got no new leads.” Sam gulped. “I found Gadreel. He’s here at the bunker. Just, y’know, giving you the heads up before you come back, Man. You know you’re welcome anytime, you don’t need a reason… We’ll see you soon… huh, text me... and take care of yourself.”

A precisely timed triple knock sounded on his door.

For some reason, Sam shot looks to the four corners of his bedroom, checking if it was presentable to receive guests. He huffed an ironic self-mocking laugh. He was checking for the person who had lived in this room for months, in his body.

“Come in, Gadreel.”

The door opened slowly. The angel appeared bearing one of the tall latte glasses they had purloined from various coffee shops. It was filled with milky coffee and chocolate goodness.

“I brought you a mocha. The way you prefer, with whipped cream from the aerosol mechanism.”

“Coffee is always good.”

Taking another step inside, Gadreel commented. “Some of the doors have been replaced.”

Sam chuckled and swung his head sardonically. “About that… don’t ask.”

“I will not.”

“You know what I like about you?” Sam smirked.

“No?”

“I know you won’t pry, won’t needle.” He took the proffered whipped cream coffee concoction, noticing Dean’s trademark ‘forgive me’ marshmallows. “Thank you.”

“Did you reach Castiel?” 

“No.” Sam took a long slurp of cream, giving his top lip a cream-tache. He licked it clean as Gadreel watched in fascination. “Would you like a taste?”

“No, thank you. It is for you.”

“Sit.” Sam gestured at the sole chair which bore a couple pairs of jeans folded over the back. Gadreel’s ungainly easing onto the seat pegged his alien nature, but it was an improvement on statuesque standing to attention. “Could you contact Cas, like on angel radio?”

Gadreel paused before answering, giving Sam time to savor his drink.

“It would be inadvisable. I was veracious about my reception from other angels. To broadcast my presence and location would not only attract those who hold me in enmity but also put you and Dean in peril. However, I trust your judgment, Sam. If you maintain that making contact with my brother is sine qua non then I am willing to attempt it.”

“No, Man, we got phones.” Sam smiled. “Cas will return my call or show up.”

“I believe that by handing me your beverage, Dean has accepted your decision on my continued presence.”

“Hole in one.” Sam nodded. “For now.”

“A stay of execution, then?”

“I guess.” Placing his glass to the side, Sam looked at his DVD selection, then at the angel. “You want, I could check on Dean, then we could watch some TV?”

Gadreel nodded, his face changing from wary blankness to tentative pleasure.

“Any show you fancy?”

“Game of Thrones?”

Sam laughed. “Good choice. If Dean doesn’t fancy a rewatch, we’ll get all the snacks.”

Sam found his brother in conciliatory mood, the end of his morning coffee going cold as he hunched over his laptop on the War Room table.

“Greenlease Library at Rockhurst University in Kansas City, Sam.”

“Huh? You got a lead? On the Mark?”

“Wouldn’t call it a lead. And Jeez, would you look at your face. It’s adorable the way your eyes light up at the word Library, like some freaking Pavlovian response.” Before Sam could retort to the fond slur, Dean flicked the screen with his fingernail. “They got a translation of that Aramaic text on biblical rivers.”

Switching one hundred percent into hunt mode, Sam shelved his downtime plans. “Great. That’s great. We can stop for gas in Lebanon. I’ll tell Gadreel we are heading out. Should get this turned around in one day.”

“Hold up.” Dean closed the laptop lid. “You don’t gotta come.”

“Dean.” Sam huffed.

“No. Listen. This taking what Meta-dick said literally, it’s clutching at straws. And Hell, I know we gotta clutch at anything, but we’re just clearing the minor league possibilities off the chessboard here.”

Sam snickered at the stew of metaphors, “Dean, come on. Metatron is a devious mofo. I wouldn’t put it past him to actually mean you had to swim in or cast the blade into some godforsaken millennia dry riverbed.”

“And that’s why we,” Dean gave a concessionary nod, “Mostly you, have been immersed in Lethe, Styx, Nile, and ancient watery lore… but this isn’t a two man job. If there’s a clue I’ll bring the transcript back here.”

Sam glared at his big brother.

“Stop bitchfacing me. I know you hate stealing from libraries.” Dean chuckled. “Hitting the road at Baby’s wheel will do me good. Gotta make sure you didn’t screw with her on your Hail Mary trip for Garth.”

The younger Winchester felt his eye roll was totally justified.

“Stay and watch over, or amuse, your angel.”

“He’s not ‘my’ angel, Dean.” Sam peeved. “We’ll do it your way, but you find anything, any clue, you call me.”

“I’ll flip the bird to any ‘Silence in the Library’ signs, scouts honor.”

“You were never a scout.” Sam grumbled, but he conceded to his brother’s need to go work, do, seek, after days of being cooped up in the bunker.

Making sure that Dean knew he could change his mind, Sam saw him off at the Impala with a good luck wish before heading back to Gadreel. The angel had waited patiently, yet was eager enough to hand Sam the boxset as soon as he was filled in on Dean’s whereabouts.

When Thrones gave way to a National Lampoons marathon, Sam made popcorn. He threw two sachets in the microwave, figuring he’d eat it as an unhealthy brunch if his companion declined. Gadreel chewed the snacks so slowly, the hunter expected the shallow bowl to be pushed towards him with a comment about not needing sustenance. As the movie continued and Gadreel followed Sam’s lead in dipping in for more salty buttery popped kernels, Sam noticed where he took a handful and tipped his head back to fill his mouth, the other took only one piece. The only strange reasoning he could parse was that an effort to consume was being made on his behalf. When the credits rolled, Sam was startled to realize that he had paid more attention to Gadreel’s snack eating motivations than the old favorite on screen. Sam had also noticed that the first Lampoon comedy had gone down well with Gadreel’s lips twitching and a few shared huffs of enjoyment. The angel seemed satisfied to roll with the outrageous acts of the Griswold family without picking holes or seeking the screenplay’s philosophical reasoning. While Clark Griswold won his family a vacation in Europe, Sam disappeared to knock up a huge plate of cheese and salsa drenched nachos. He checked his phone but the sole text was a snarky, not funny, Dean message that he hadn’t killed anyone at the library, the book was irrelevant, and he would drive back that evening. He would be late but did Sam want take out? The normality of the query made Sam gladly tap out a reply that he was good but they needed Doritos.

Sam brought a couple of beers with the platter of nachos. Gadreel chugged contentedly on a bottle from Sam’s stash of Boulevard Pale Ale, commenting that he found the alcoholic beverage surprisingly acceptable. 

Turned out, Gadreel had a sense of humor and a hearty laugh. A string of cheese spooling out to gossamer thinness connected a nacho between his fingers and Sam’s hand. When the elastic thread snapped curling in delicate slow motion midair to dangle in spirals from Sam’s thumb, the angel’s vocal laughter sounded for the first time.

As the movie became more farcical, infectious mirth spread forth tickling Sam’s funny bone and making the hunter grin wider each time Gadreel threw his head back to chortle. If he was human Sam would have presumed it was mild intoxication. The only conclusion he could rationally make was that as the hours had gone by, Gadreel had let down his guard and had relaxed in Sam’s presence, and honestly Sam was tickled that he could entice such a thing to happen.

“How surreal is my life?” Sam wondered not for the first time, after he had back clapped his guest goodnight. Heading for the vast bunker bathroom, while Gadreel walked in the opposite direction, Sam huffed in amazement that he too had let his guard down. Sitting there laughing, being himself, taking a minor break, without pressure, had felt good. Knots that had been winding and binding Sam vice tight with tension slackened their hold.


	4. Opening

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Second chapter in as many days. The previous one was mostly written before the mid season premiere aired. This story is canon divergent but I wanted to see episode ten before I posted to ensure that I hadn’t taken a wildly different path to the show at this point. The Mark of Cain, and how it impacts Sam, plays a part in this story because that is where our beloved hunters are focused, but this tale is ultimately more about the characters than the MOC quest. Thank you to those reading. I hope you have been and will continue to enjoy.
> 
> +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++SPNSPNSPN+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> 
>  _“Feeling my way through the darkness, guided by a beating heart.”_ Wake me up, Avicii

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++SPNSPNSPN++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 

Gadreel adapted to the routine of life in the bunker with an ease that evoked a quiet gladness in Sam. Over the days that followed their TV ‘day off’ in Sam’s bedroom, their time concentrated in the library. Sam and Dean kept an eye on their regular web newsfeeds for any likely hunts but nothing pinged their radar. Continuous research was some special sort of torture according to Dean, who disappeared for long stretch breaks or to check his car, assisted by his new argument that they had an extra mind filtering through the MOL files now. It could have been discouraging that they continued to draw blanks on anything to do with the Mark, and that any references to Cain and Abel were biblical and Gnostic standard fare. Their only slightly viable plan was Dean’s tenuous ‘find Cain and gank the bastard’ one. Sam was sure that if Cain was no longer in Missouri they could enlist Crowley to locate him. Finding out if killing Cain was as simple as gutting him with the First Blade was whole other kettle of piranha fish. Also it was possible that offing the original Knight would make things worse. For all they knew that act could bump Dean up the Knight pecking order. Sinking into a reading chair with a long neck beer, trashy lawyer fiction book to pick pre-law knowledge holes in, while Gadreel in the high winged chair opposite leafed though his choice from Sam’s old storage boxes of sci-fi fantasy favorites, was a perfect way to end long days of heavy duty research. There was no need for conversation except the occasional welcome question to clarify that yes hobbits had hairy feet or that humans had not invented robotic babelfish yet.

On the morning when distant muffled sounds of gunshot came from the target range, Sam could not repress a buoyant mood that had him dragging Gadreel outside to join him on his daily hike. That tiny sign that Dean was holding on, building his resistance to the Mark, was a crumb of hope. 

On their return Sam headed straight for the kitchen for rehydration. Juicing their oranges with a few overripe veggies, Sam watched Gadreel slicing through a couple of hardening lemons that had been at the back of the refrigerator.

“You think you could peel that nub of ginger root too?” Sam asked. 

Gadreel quirked his lips as a pleased affirmative and turned to grab the ginger revealing that his running gear looked like he had yet to leave the building. Sam, on the other hand, had sweat beads clinging to the ends of his hair and both sides of his top bore a long vee of perspiration. 

“How come I look like one of those poor wretches who collapse in the Olympic stadium on the last lap of the marathon and you look like a model for American Track and Field?” Sam good naturedly grumbled as he reached for shaker pint glasses. 

“You do not.” Gadreel firmly contradicted. “I found joining you for the human experience of stretching my muscles in the bracing air agreeably novel and one I would wish to repeat.”

“Yeah?” Sam nodded slowly. “Well, that’s good, I think. I run most days if wanna come.”

Invigorating juices consumed, Gadreel volunteered to clean up while Sam showered. Initially Sam had protested to their guest mucking in, while Dean had made some smart alec comment about Grace use and Mary Poppins. Gadreel neither rose to Dean’s bait nor permitted Sam to treat him with kid gloves. He took chores that needed to be done and could been seen mopping the floor just as often as one of the brothers. He had yet to venture into food preparation, or take out retrieval. With a self-mocking huff at his ability to burn water, Sam thought of how he was hardly the one to show more than juice or salad prep to the angel. Still it was gratifying how Gadreel was prepared to try any food that Sam placed in front of him.

With things ticking along easily, Sam was blindsided when Dean shoved him into an empty bedroom on his way back from his blissfully hot long shower.

“What the hell?” Sam spurted, grabbing at his towel, and losing his bundle of clothes to the dusty floor.

“Why is he wearing your clothes?” 

It took a moment for Sam’s brain to catch up. “Gadreel?”

“No. Pope freaking Francis.”

“We went for a run. We wear the same size. What business is it of yours?” Sam bristled.

“And what’s with the eating? Why are you bringing him sandwiches? Are we grocery shopping for three now?”

“What is your problem? You can’t seriously be freaking out about slices of bread, lettuce and shredded turkey?” Sam tried to bore holes through his brother’s thick skull. He hated that they were in the situation where he fretted about the motivation behind this surprise intervention. Was Dean being contrary or was he getting riled up to lose his temper?

“Why is he aping being human? He’s not. Isn’t there angel crap he could be doing? How long is he going to hang around drinking our beer and washing our socks?” Dean asked with indignation.

With a light bulb moment dawning, Sam laughed. “He’s not washing socks. You are being ridiculous.”

“Sam…”

“I get it.” Sam raised his palm. “No, honestly Dean, I do get it. This is about Cas.”

Dean squawked.

“Why don’t you call him, Dean?”

“He is doing his own thing. He’s busy.” Dean muttered. “I’m not dragging him here for nothing.”

It would be pointless to say to his emotionally repressed brother that missing Cas and wanting to see him was not nothing. Having Gadreel there must have rubbed salt into the wound that sometimes Sam had glimpsed. Dean liked to keep his family close, but Castiel kept leaving. There were valid, sometimes end of the world reasons for Castiel’s departures. Having one angel be satisfied to remain at MOL HQ must have been grating on Dean. On top of that, their conversation a few days earlier had dragged out of Dean’s buried painful memory box the events of when newly human Cas had been turned away.

“How about a council of war?” Sam suggested.

“A what now?” Dean squinted suspiciously.

“Gadreel was around at the Beginning, like maybe as long as Metatron. Cas’ garrison must have seen so much. We’ve got our lore here, including Bobby’s library which I haven’t fully catalogued yet. Ask him to brainstorm with us?” Sam shivered under his towel. “I’m gonna put on clothes. I’ll text him if you want.”

“No,” Dean’s voice lifted. “I’ll text him.”

Dean barreled out the door and headed for his room. 

“You just want emoticons.” Sam shouted after him.

Dean raised one finger high above his head.

Later Dean expressed his happiness at Castiel’s acceptance by making patties for burgers from scratch, blithely ignoring Sam’s questions about the contents of their text messages, and plopping his dirty boots on the library table to knock back his beer. With Dean content, Sam pulled Gadreel aside to fill him in on his idea.

“When Cas gets here, I thought we could combine our knowledge, bounce ideas around, and come up with some new lines of enquiry about the Mark.” Sam gestured with his hands. 

“You want my assistance in this?” Gadreel looked puzzled.

“Man, you have been assisting. This time we are going to brainstorm. You never know what lateral thinking will spark or what memories could be helpful.” Sam tapped at his own head.

Gadreel flinched. “I would not have any relevant memories.”

In concern, Sam laid his palm on the angel’s forearm. “The Mark is an ancient curse. Maybe there is something from those times…”

“I don’t remember.” The words were stilted, forced out.

Gadreel was lying to him. Sam was sure. “It may only be something small, by questioning each other…”

“I was gone. The events with Cain, they happened after. I had no involvement. You are bringing Castiel here to interrogate me.” Gadreel accused rapid fire. His hands clenched to fists but his action was not due to anger. Sam recognized fear. 

“I’m not. Honestly, Gadreel, no one is interrogating anyone. Believe me.” Sam beseeched.

Green eyes met his and set there.

“You aren’t reading my mind, are you?” Sam froze. He could not, would not allow such a violation. If the angel had crossed that line in his fear, then the slowly building trust between them was about to crumble to the ground.

“I do not need to enter your mind to know you are genuine, Sam.” Gadreel sagged. “I have frightened you.”

Sam shrugged it off. “And I have given you the impression that you are not safe here. The wrong impression.”

“If I did have knowledge that would help, I would share it. You would not need to set Castiel or Dean to work on me. Not need to subject me to…”

The angel stopped. His face paled. The vacancy in his eyes told that he was back there, in his Heavenly prison cell, reliving God knew what.

“You do not need to say it.” Sam reached forward, steadying Gadreel’s shoulder with his hand. He squeezed tight, pulling him back to the present. “I have memories I do not wish to revisit, but if there is some nugget lodged in my grapefruit I would drag it to the surface, because it is for Dean. I don’t expect you to scrape through the unimaginable, but I am asking for your help.”

Holding his breath, Sam’s chest ached before Gadreel answered. It was a big ask. Getting his brother back had consumed Sam for months of a living nightmare. He had almost shattered when he had seen black eyes staring at him on a small store security feed. He had picked and gnawed at the fringes of his Cage memories, trying to force his mind to find any reference to Cain and Abel, the Fall of Man, the demonizing of Lilith, but all was consumed in fire and blood. There were other memories Sam shied away from, of battling against the exhilaration and completeness when he and Lucifer were one. They were unbearable because of the vast inexplicable sorrow that they evoked. His thoughts and the fallen archangel’s had merged, but Lucifer’s focus had not wandered back then. However it was possible that together he or one of the others would be able to bring to the surface something forgotten by any of them, just as when Dean would quip a movie quote and Sam could see a film that he had forgotten about play out in his mind. 

Gadreel cleared his throat.

“I will offer what I can, Sam, but there are places I cannot go.” The angel copied Sam’s motion to cup the hunter’s shoulder. “For you, I will hide nothing. You will have my truth, such as it is, but I plead for your understanding.”

Overwhelmed, staggered by the weight of that plea, Sam nodded with feeling. He swallowed hard, meaning every word, “You’ve got it, and my support, Gadreel.”


	5. Exchange

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _“So show me Family, all the blood that I would bleed. I don’t know where I belong. I don’t know where I went wrong.”_ Ho Hey, The Lumineers

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++SPNSPNSPN++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 

“What do you want to do, Sam?”

“Huh? I thought we could start on these Enochian tracts from Bobby’s stash. You can read the Enochian ones and I’ll do the translations. That should keep us occupied until Cas arrives.”

They were in a temperature and humidity controlled storage room. Sam had to give the Men of Letters credit where it was due. They knew how to take care of their toys. A simple copperplate on the door “Nam Libris” had set Sam’s heart racing when he had discovered the room. It contained many ancient tomes, but its shelves were half empty as if the compilation of this sub-library was a work in progress. It was perfect for storing Bobby’s legacy, retrieved from storage units and Jody’s safekeeping. 

“You misunderstand me.” Gadreel bent to take slim leather bound volumes from the packing crate Sam gestured towards. “I wish to enquire about your plans.”

Mouth set in a grim line, Sam stated. “Plan is to get that vile thing off Dean’s arm.”

Gadreel reached forward, hand grazing the pale white-blue plaid of the other’s sleeve, “Sam.”

“What?”

“Loathe though I am to remind you of my wrongs. What of your plans to make this place a bastion for young hunters? What of your thoughts of taking a step back, of studying by distance or part-time at a university?”

Sam balked. Not at the reference to his inner secrets, or that Gadreel was privy to them, but at the reminder of his foolishness. He hissed painfully, “Pipe dreams, burned up by reality.”

“They do not have to be. You are allowed to be happy, Sam.”

Gadreel’s sincerity cut like a knife reopening an old wound. Sam shook his head. 

“Listen, Man. I’ve gone down that road before and more times than not it’s ended bloody. I grew up. I shoulder my responsibilities. I know what is important, what my priorities are, and I’ll take happy when I can get it, but…”

Gadreel interrupted. “It is possible to modify your dreams and expectations, to shoulder great responsibilities, to travel a different path, and to have happiness. They are not mutually exclusive.”

“A wise person once told me that I could choose the life I wanted to live. He helped me strive for my dreams. Years later, despite all that had happened, I got a chance to thank him.” Sam huffed wryly, remembering he was hopped up on demon blood and enmeshed in Ruby’s lies at the time. “The tables had turned. My eyes had been opened. He was the naive one asking about happiness.”

“I have seen you doing what you love. How you enjoy delving into the archives here. It is not wrong to take such enjoyment.”

“That’s not what I meant, and not what you asked.” Sam clicked his tongue and attempted to end the discussion. “Dean is more pressing.”

“Hope is a beacon. What hopes we hold dear, they are what sustain us with strength to carry on.”

“That is a lovely sentiment, Gadreel.”

The angel glared. “It is not sentiment. It is truth.”

Startled by the passionate statement, Sam focused all his attention on the angel. 

“I hear you. Without my hope, my faith in Dean, the struggle, this fight would be unbearable. I believe in the power of trying. We have beaten unbeatable odds before.”

“Yet, Sam, even the hardiest solider must take his rest, must have his sanctuary, and a beacon to aim towards.”

“And what’s yours? What keeps you going?” Sam swung the conversation around, challenging as a form of defense. 

Gadreel sank down to sit on the lid of a tall wooden crate. With a sigh he spoke softly, “You would not find it of interest.”

“Why do you say that?” Sam blinked. His rush of ire dissipated as fast as it had surged. “I asked, didn’t I?”

“It is a dark tale.”

“And you think I got rainbows and puppies up here?” Sam jested, tapping his temple.

“Yes,” Gadreel smiled kindly, “You do. So many memories of good times with your brother. Your achievements, friends you made on life’s journey, memories of Jessica.”

Sam gulped, sucker punched. Before his eyes appeared an image of Jess in Stanford Library, flicking back her curls, illicitly laughing out loud at some lame joke he had made. Internally he cried a protest not to mention her name, but what passed his lips was a bitter whisper.

“A lot of those memories turn sour.”

“Yes. You understand.” Gadreel intoned.

“I’m not sure that I do.” Sam planted his butt on the free edge of the crate, shuffling sideways so that his companion had to make room. “Explain it to me.”

Gadreel turned his face to meet Sam’s inquiring gaze. He took a breath, turned his palms up open on his lap, and began.

“Hope can be pressed. It can be shrunk until infinitivally tiny. A seed inside your core until at last it is the final line before despair. A gossamer thread so thin dividing existence from permanent darkness. Hoarded and hidden a speck of faith that one day I would find the opportunity for some measure of redemption. That I would find a situation, other than my eternal punishment, where I would be able to do good, to demonstrate that I was not the nefarious creature they called me, not the evil they accused me of.”

Sam bit down hard on his lip. Words spilled forth, unsaid, silent, but wanting to be spoken, of acts committed using Sam’s hands, of the murder of Kevin Tran. Gadreel was lost in his telling. Sam curbed his instinct to lash out. 

“There were times when my grip slipped. My wings broken and useless, stripped bare to the bone, those bones smashed, my grace in shards, never-ending discordant wavelengths…”

Sam could not fathom the horror of existing like that for eternities. 

“For eons I was alone. Siblings came and went from the cells next to me, all there for their own crimes and disobediences, all believing my crime to be more heinous than theirs. Then Abner was condemned. He would speak through the cell wall. _Are you well, Brother?_ And I would find from somewhere impossible inside, the strength to form a response. _Yes, I have survived._ For centuries we shared imprisonment and torture. We comforted one another with words, but also, Sam, by deeds, by the joining of our graces in acts forbidden, but we were already damned.”

The look Gadreel gave Sam was one of a cowed man, prepared to be struck. Did he think Sam would hate due to his confession of his relationship with Abner, or was the angel caught in a flashback to Heaven’s jail?

“Geez, I get it.” Sam huffed sympathetically, “No condemnation here of taking comfort where it can be found.”

Gadreel nodded slowly in appreciation of Sam’s acceptance. “It was more than that. We kept each other alive.” He paused briefly. “I loved him. When I had recovered, I thought of seeking him out. But I wanted to prove myself. I wanted to be worthy in his eyes. I took his vessel’s name on a piece of paper. I went to that place unknowing. He was overjoyed to see me, and I him. My grace flared. He responded.”

Sam filled the painful silence. “I don’t know what to say.”

“I killed him.” Gadreel choked. “I put the greater good of Metatron’s instructions above my heart, my instincts, my hope. I took the life of the one person who knew me and loved me. The person, who did not turn his back when I was at my lowest, trusted me and in return I extinguished his existence.”

The tall straight backed angel crumpled in front of Sam. He hunched his shoulders, bodily wracked by all too human sobs. 

Floundering, Sam placed his palm on the other’s spine, stroking a slow tentative rhythm. 

Gadreel buried his face in his hands. “I lost him and there is no one to blame but me. If I had not been released, if the angels had not fallen, then Abner, good kind Abner, would still be alive.”

Taking initiative, Sam caught the round of Gadreel’s shoulder, pulling him close. He felt Gadreel sorrow, guilt and loss.

“I killed him. Killing Abner was the worst thing I did, because I knew, deep down, I knew it was wrong. I trusted The Scribe and Abner paid the price.” Gadreel stuttered through slackening sobs.

“Shush, shush,” Sam crooned. He could not be sure when he had begun to rock the angel in his arms. The raw desperate grief made Sam hold on tighter. “You trusted the wrong side. Your mistake cost your friend, cost Kevin, their lives. Your regret won’t bring them back, but I understand.”

“Good people died.” Gadreel spoke low.

“And you must live with that.” Sam kept his voice even. “But you changed sides, Gadreel, and that counts for a lot.”

“Seeing the error of my ways does not bring back Abner or the prophet.”

“No.” Sam sighed deeply in sorrow for Kevin.

“My Abner.” Gadreel made a noise at the back of his throat, but his weeping had stopped. “I will bear the responsibility always.”

Consoling Gadreel had thrown up a mess of emotional memories. Sam released the recovering angel from his cradling arms, but remained seated, sides pressed together.

“For a long time,” the hunter cleared his throat, “and maybe part of me still… I believed that I was responsible. That my actions killed Jess.”

Gadreel sucked air. He tilted his head to listen.

“For night after night I dreamed her death, foresaw it. I never warned her. I left her unprotected, undefended and unprepared.” Sam snorted at his young naïve self. “Believing I was out from the hunting life, I did not test our friends with holy water, silver cutlery, or words of power. Our best friend was a demon.”

Almost a decade old heartbreak ached inside. 

“I was sure that if I had done things differently, she would be alive. I was forewarned and I ignored it, blundering on, not wanting to believe I was a psychic freak. I felt that her death was my fault. I hallucinated her on street corners. I was bereaved and wracked with guilt and anger.”

“Sam, you did not kill her.” Gadreel’s hands covered Sam’s.

“It felt like I had. It was a very long time before I could see that the responsibility for her death fell at the door of those who screwed with our lives to bring about the apocalypse. Fact remains that she died because of me and the plans for me. And I loved her, Gadreel.” Sam stressed his words with the force of truth. “I loved her with every ounce of my being.”

“I know you did.”

“Everything, everybody, I touch, that I try to have a… dream of making a home with… a life… everyone I like… that I would cherish… they… it never ends well.” Sam gulped hoping the angel understood his rambling references to other attempts from Amy to Amelia to beautiful special Sarah Blake. “I used to wonder if I am cursed. If being unclean… if I am a curse.”

“Not cursed.” Gadreel lifted Sam’s hand to his lips, grazing touch between his knuckles.

Sam watched in fascination, feeling warm dry lips press softly to his skin.

“Changer of Destiny.” Gadreel named the vulnerable hunter.

Sam smiled. He carefully withdrew his fingers from Gadreel’s hold. “We make our own choices.”

Gadreel’s head dropped taking Sam’s intended encouraging words to heart as reflecting on his grave mistakes rather than his more recent decisions. 

Sam saw. He could not let Gadreel believe that interpretation. He cradled the clean shaven skin of the angel’s cheek and jaw. Gadreel sank in to the affectionate touch. A gentle smile playing on his lips, Sam did not think beyond the moment. He leaned forward to caress.

Loud clashing pounding on the door made Sam jerk out of his reverie. 

“Sam. What the freaking hell are you two doing in there? Writing the books?” Dean called with a note of cheer. “Cas is on his way. He’ll be here by nightfall.”

Muttering under his breath about bad timing, Sam rose to his feet. He extended a hand to Gadreel, who stood beside him for Dean’s door flinging entrance. The older brother narrowed his eyes suspiciously but refrained from any comment on the different atmosphere, red eyes and weird posture of the other two.

“Well shake a leg!” Dean grinned. “I swear to God, anyone would think you’d been caught behind the bleachers.”

Laughing at his own joke, Dean led the way down the corridor. Seeing Dean so looking forward to Cas’s return, buoyed Sam’s spirits. The cathartic talk with Gadreel did not leave him drained. In fact Sam felt better than he had in weeks. He risked a sideeye glance to the angel keeping pace at his side and was met with a mirrored expression of concern and understanding. His palm itched to find Gadreel’s hand, to squeeze into being the embryonic feeling of affection that was growing between them. With Dean before them, Sam quelled his craving to focus on Cas’s arrival and what it might presage for their quest to rid Dean of the Mark of Cain.


	6. Remaining

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N – Apologies for my absence. I’ve learned my lesson about starting two stories at once.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++SPNSPNSPN+++++++++++++++++++++

 _Now those memories come back to haunt me, they haunt me like a curse"_. – The River, Bruce Springsteen

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++SPNSPNSPN++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

“I have nothing to offer.”

Sam jolted to a stop. He thought he must have misheard the quietly spoken words from the angel whose back was half-turned into the leather bound book shelves. 

“Castiel can aid you better than I.”

Dean had gone to open the garage passageway for Castiel’s pimpmobile. Sam was on his way to welcome their old ally, detouring to check if Gadreel would like to come with or wait in the library. He blinked at the self-depreciating statement then did a double take when he realized that Gadreel had re-dressed in the brown tee, hoodie and jeans from when Sam found him in Lincoln.

“Thank you for your kindness, Sam. I will never forget it.”

“Wait. Hold up!” Sam raised his palm. “Am I hearing sayonara?”

Gadreel swallowed hard but remained silent and statue-like.

“What about earlier … in the store room?” Sam endeavored to understand. He thought they had made a connection. He had felt that something had opened between them. Confidences had been shared. A private person by nature, Sam had let Gadreel see inside. There had been gentle affection, tentative and new. Some seed glimmered. If Sam zeroed in on it might be a mutual attraction. 

“I do not wish to be a burden,” Gadreel could not meet Sam’s eye. “I cannot hinder or delay your honorable quest to find a cure for your brother.”

“That’s fucking bullcrap.” Sam shot. From edging closer to each other, now Gadreel wanted to run for the hills.

Gadreel’s head lifted in surprise at Sam’s expletive.

“You’re not and you aren’t. Why are you saying this shit?” Sam surged forward, grabbing Gadreel’s biceps and searching into darkened green eyes.

Had he scared Gadreel? Had confessing his lost love for Abner exposed the angel too much? Was he afraid Sam would hurt him? Or that he would hurt Sam? The hunter sought answers without asking the questions. He huffed, slackening his punishing grip by a fraction. “I get that you think you’re damaged. Hell, maybe you think you’re unfixable, but look at me, I’m held together by duct tape and safety pins inside.”

Gadreel observed Sam’s grasping hands as if they were alien tentacles without withdrawing or resisting the touch. 

“You are not.” He finally looked directly into Sam’s pleading eyes. “I healed you.”

“Not talkin’ ‘bout in here,” Sam demonstrated by releasing an arm to sweep over his torso. He tapped his temple. “In here.”

“Sam,” Gadreel expelled his breath as a prayer.

“No, Gadreel. You know a helluva lot. More than anyone ‘cept Lucifer. But you don’t know what the last few months have done to me, what I’ve endured, what I’ve done, clawing and digging through dark demonic crap to find Dean, to see him become his worst nightmare, to try and hold it together without him. Cas was on the end of a phone, others too, but I fought that battle and another one in my grapefruit. I hadta be the stronger brother, the Rock in our family. Keep on fighting for Dean, all the time knowing I’m flawed and will never measure up.”

A crack of fire struck his cheek. He covered his reddened skin in shock.

“You slapped me.” Sam’s jaw dropped.

“You will not speak of yourself in those terms.” Gadreel demanded. “I will not listen to you say such defiling words. You are more special and inspiring than you know.”

Sam snorted.

“Stop.” Gadreel’s nostrils flared. “Sam please.”

“Don’t go.” Sam blew a puff of air.

“I have nothing to give.”

“You can stay. Be here.”

“For you?” Gadreel asked tentatively.

Sam couldn’t bring himself to ask, but having someone in his corner while he fought was something he craved. He nodded.

“I will stay. You can tell me anything, good or bad, dark or light.” Gadreel promised.

“I know.” Sam responded, feeling the verity of that promise. 

He reached. Gadreel caught his hand, entwining their fingers and squeezing. 

Sam nodded, running through a combination of relief and comfort. Gadreel was solid, committed and steady, Sam wanted to lean his head on his shoulder but if he did that, Dean would call him a sap until doomsday.

Dean and Castiel’s voices preceded the pair. Gadreel made to pull away, to put acceptable space between them, but Sam kept hold of his hand. There were too many secrets, too much hidden over the years. Although he could not name this budding connection between he and Gadreel, Sam was not going to sneak around corners or shade this part of his life from Dean or Castiel’s views.

“Freaking….” Dean managed to blurt before his jaw dropped. 

Sam glared, challenging Dean to protest, part of him wanting to get any Dean-rant over and done, rather than be on tenterhooks for a blindsiding backlash.

Castiel placed an open palm over the buttons of Dean’s shirt, stalling him. Amazingly Dean accepted Castiel’s advance without a word.

“Hello Sam,” Castiel tilted his head a fraction in greeting. “Gadreel, it is good to see you.”

“Hello brother.” Gadreel spoke with guarded pleasure.

Castiel surprised both his angelic sibling and Sam by wrapping his arms around the taller angel and administering a back clapping hug. Gadreel’s eyes beseeched Sam for help, posture stiff as a board. He let go of Sam’s hand and seemed not to know what to do with his limbs. 

Sam jerked his head and made wide eyes at Castiel’s shoulders. Gadreel made an ‘a-ha’ face before patting Castiel’s suit jacket sleeves in response.

“Geez, Cas,” Dean sniggered, “’s like now-you hugging stick-in-ass-you.”

“I never had a stick in my ass.” Castiel responded as he released his hold, his lips twitching slightly, betraying that he had comprehended Dean’s brand of humor.

“This human custom,” Gadreel enquired, “of hugging, I do not believe I understand the full range and meaning of its practical application.”

“Ask Sam,” Dean chortled, “He’ll teach ya.”

Sam’s chest filled. There might be jabs and concerned words later, but it felt good that Dean trusted his judgment enough not to explode.

“So, what’s the word, Cas?” Sam asked, reaching to pat their friend’s shoulder.

“I may have a lead.” 

“On the Mark,” Sam leaped to conclusions.

“Hey,” Dean raised both palms. “before we all spend the next million freaking hours in research mode, food, beer, food, OK?”

“OK, Jerk.” Sam grinned. “We all know about your bottomless stomach.”

Dean patted his belly, “Damn right, Bitch.”

Glee at being able to horse round with his brother was tainted slightly when Sam noticed Dean scratching his sleeve as he jaunted off to the kitchen.

“It troubles him.” Castiel surmised.

“It needs to be fed.” Sam huffed grimly.

Gadreel’s arm spanned Sam’s shoulders. “Dean excels at minimizing his struggles.”

With a rueful grimace at the truth in his angel’s words, Sam led the way to the library tables. Gadreel took the chair beside Sam. Castiel sat opposite reviewing some of the Enochian tracts they had rooted out. 

“Strike lucky?” Dean asked a lack of hope born of hitting dead ends over and over. He placed a tray with three homemade bacon cheese burgers between their papers. Nabbing the only salad free one, he added to Castiel, “You sure you don’t wanna patty? I got sub rolls and that weird hummus crap if you want something way out?”

“No, thank you,” Castiel looked up with a twinkle in his eye, “I don’t eat anymore, but I appreciate the offer.”

“Whatever floats your boat, Man.” Dean bumped Castiel’s arm.

“Hopeless,” Sam commented under his breath at the other couple’s mutual chemistry. He muttered, “And that’s our hummus Dean’s trying to gift.”

Gadreel nodded before taking a jaw spanning chomp of his meal.

“You’re eating,” Castiel blinked across the table, “Is there a problem with your grace?”

“No, Brother.” Gadreel replied once he had swallowed his massive bite. “Sam has guided me through many flavors and combinations of foods. It has been an educational and pleasurable journey. And I like to consume what Sam enjoys.”

“Don’t you perceive these burgers at an atomic level?” Castiel asked with a disgusted nose crinkle.

“Yes. I do. And it is fascinating.” Gadreel responded.

“It’s not the same as tasting food as human.” Castiel stated with a touch of envy.

“I would not know this. I have never been human.” 

“Right.” Dean slammed his beer bottle onto the table. “You two can start your own Angel Recipe Review show on The Food Network later.”

Sam snorted into his beer bottle as both angels readied to protest they had no intentions of making a show before realizing Dean was teasing. 

“So what’s the bead on this thing on my arm?” 

“There may not be a ‘bead’,” Castiel replied cautiously, “You remember Hannah and I had been convincing rogue angels to return to heaven? I have a lead on an elder brother who has no wish to return.”

Gadreel gulped, “Can he not be left in peace, Castiel?”

Castiel inclined his head, “We have been persuading many who fled the conflict between Bartholomew and Malachi to return. In this case, I believe our target may have information that could be useful.”

“I will not be persuaded to go back.” Gadreel snapped. “There are those who would not understand, many who would not forgive…”

“No one is making you go anywhere.” Sam affirmed. “Right, Cas?”

“Yes, yes, Sam.” Castiel appeared slightly flustered. “I did not come here to take Gadreel home.”

“He is home.” Sam dug his fingers into Gadreel’s thigh, holding him there. Gadreel’s hand covered his.

“There is nowhere but here.” Gadreel met Sam’s eyes, imparting the bonus extra that ‘here’ meant by Sam’s side.

Dean’s eyebrows rose.

“You’re welcome.” Sam managed to say through being slightly overwhelmed.

“Thank you, Sam.” Gadreel’s voice was soft and low.

Meeting gazes, they shared small almost shy smiles.

Castiel cleared his throat. “This angel is one of the first seraphim. He has hidden his abode with sigils but there are rumors of sightings.”

“And he knows about the Mark?” Dean leaned forward.

“There is no guarantee but Ithuriel was there in the beginning. He famously tackled Lucifer with his spear and helped Michael cast Lucifer into the pit.” 

“Impressive.” Dean hummed.

“He was in the garden.” Gadreel shuddered. “He led the charge to the tree while Sariel and Raguel dragged me from the gate.”

Sam gulped. Gadreel’s eyes had gone vacant then glowed blue as if he was trying to distribute healing power to his own mind. Tightening his hold on Gadreel’s thigh, Sam licked his lips. “Hey, hey Gadreel. You’re here now, with me. We’re in the library with Cas and Dean.” Sam threw a look for help over to Castiel who nodded for Sam to continue. “You’re not back there. You got out remember?”

“Sam.” The angel’s shoulders sagged. “I remember. I am cursed to remember too much.”

“You wanna bail?” Sam suggested kindly. “I won’t think any less of you if you wanna head down to my room and throw on a boxset.”

Gadreel paused a moment, reflecting on the get out of jail card. “No. I will remain.”

“Where is this itching-urinal?” Dean asked.

“Ithuriel,” Castiel did not rise to Dean’s toilet humor. “is occupying a vessel in Nevada. He has made it very clear that he does not want to be contacted.”

“But we’re going to contact him.” Sam stated redundantly. 

“Yes, we are.” Castiel confirmed. “I would hope that Ithuriel might impart his knowledge, but the way he has secreted his location means it’s possible that he is resistant to any other angels.”

“He’s a grumpy old bastard then?” Dean huffed.

“After our Father left, Michael…” Castiel sighed, “Let’s just say, many of our older siblings assumed new roles. Ithuriel left his garrison to become a trainer of warriors.”

“He train you, Cas? Is he your Mr Miyagi?” Dean asked as he open mouthedly chewed his burger.

“I was already assigned to my garrison but we received brothers and sisters prepped by Ithuriel.” Castiel set his face. “He was a hard taskmaster. More recently he was a Raphael supporter but took refuge in Heaven’s far reaches during the chaos that followed.”

“If he was on Rafe’s side,” Dean’s brow knitted in concern. “He’s not gonna roll out the red carpet for you, Cas.”

Castiel pinched his brow. He sighed, dropping his fingers in preparation for air quotes. “Since Metatron there has been ‘water under the bridge’. We can hope he doesn’t hold grudges.”

“I get this guy is old as everything,” Sam pointed out, “But how do we get him to spill anything he knows about Cain and the Mark?”

“I will appeal to his righteous reputation,” Castiel replied with a steely gaze, “And if that fails, I will offer to intercede on his behalf to keep Heaven from his chosen home on Earth, and if that fails, I suggest we bring holy oil and our angel blades.”

“I do not wish to be involved in torture. I will not torture. Oiled blades will not extract Ithuriel’s secrets.” Gadreel’s jaw stiffened in a stony resolved face.

“No.” Castiel agreed. “But the prospect of being confined indefinitely in an ever-burning circle works amazingly well.”

“Taking on this dude sounds more dangerous than entry level angel face offs.” Dean mused. “We might need a plan B, and a freaking plan C.”

“If his place is warded, that puts me and Dean up to the plate.” Sam added. 

“Until we get inside and we can graffiti over his finger-paints.” Dean continued.

“It would be prudent to add the banishing sigil.” Gadreel volunteered.

Castiel made a hissing wince, “But as a last resort because if deployed we may not be able to locate Ithuriel again.”

“I’d like to dig into the Men of Letters lore on him. Not dissing your knowledge of this guy, Cas, but you never know what nuggets are within the bunker walls.” Sam tapped his finger on the table, adding, “Or online, y’know.”

“We shouldn’t delay for long,” Castiel considered, “If Ithuriel moves…”

“Right on, Cas.” Dean supported. 

Sam huffed, “I’m not talking about writing a freaking thesis on him. Give me and Gadreel a day to check it out.”

“We will all assist with research.” Castiel nodded.

“Assist with freaking research,” Dean grumbled under his breath, “Starts with action plans ends with noses buried in books. I’m getting another round and this time Cas, you’re having one, even if you just hold the frigging bottle in your hand.”

“Yes, Dean.” The angel ducked his head in surrender to a grumpy Dean.

Gadreel’s eyes widened. Sam shook his head, knowing his brother would feel better after venting his frustration.

“I will clear our plates.” Gadreel volunteered, beginning to gather their leavings before Sam could stop him.

Left briefly alone, Castiel and Sam fell into companionable silence. The reverent stillness that naturally existed within the bunker’s thick walls settled effortlessly in Sam’s soul. The hush of knowledge through cavernous spaces reflected on generations of lore, at least until Dean laid a needle on the gramophone or they downloaded a show to watch feet propped on the map of the war room table.

“Penny for them?” Castiel asked.

Sam donned a smile rather than sharing his philosophical musings on time, knowledge and silence. He deflected, “How are you, Cas?”

“Not sick,” Castiel answered plainly. “This grace sustains me, presently.”

“That’s good, right?” Sam drew his brows tight, “Plenty of gas in the tank?”

“I am being judicious. The reserves are not unlimited.” Castiel intoned, “But currently it is not an issue.”

“I get it.” Sam nodded in understanding. “When all of this, with Dean, is solved we’ll find your grace.”

Castiel did not respond immediately. He appeared to ponder on Sam’s optimistic resolution to the Mark and the promise of future aid.

“Dean seems more positive than I expected.” 

“He acts well.” Sam huffed, “But it’s taking its toll. Every dead end, every reminder… I see him scratching at it, and then he sees me seeing him and his hand flies away as if burned. Dean’s freaking ace at putting on a brave face.”

Castiel nodded in agreement. “And you, Sam?”

“I’m good.” The hunter half-smiled. “I’m here for Dean.”

“And Gadreel?”

Sam huffed with a shrug, “I guess I’m here for Gadreel too.”

“I am not good at ‘emotions’ and ‘relationships’.” Castiel began.

Sam shook with a repressed snigger. “Air quotes not needed, Cas.”

“I meant,” Castiel tried again.

“You want to know what the story is with me and Gadreel.” Sam rescued the floundering angel. “He is here and I want him here.”

“Your feelings have changed.” Castiel commented.

Sam ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t want him to go. I want to get to know him better, and he understands.”

“You do not fear him.”

“No. I don’t, Cas.” Sam quirked his lips. “A sea change, I guess. I don’t fear Gadreel. If anything I fear for him. He worries that his sacrifice is not enough to clean the slate, that he will meet anger and violence from his own kind.”

“I cannot reassure you, Sam.” Castiel replied. “However I can say that I have met such and survived.”

Sam sucked his bottom lip. Thing was that he was not sure that after eternities of torture, Gadreel’s inner strength matched Castiel. “He was a figure of hate for so long. Part of the reason he took refuge after the fall was his need to hide away. Now we are going to face an angel who knew him before…”

“You do not need to worry about me.” Gadreel came behind, resting his palm, finger touching the skin above Sam’s collar, “I will be proud to accompany you. We will travel together.”

Taking in the warm weight on his shoulder, Sam let tension seep out of his body. Impressed by such courage, he twisted his neck to seek Gadreel’s gaze. “Together. We’ll stand up to this Ithuriel dick together.”

Gadreel’s soft “Thank you.” was almost inaudible but Sam heard, and it laid another gossamer layer of affinity between them.


	7. The edge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sincere apologies for my absence, real life has been hectic, and my muse took an unscheduled vacation.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++SPNSPNSPN+++++++++++++++++++++++++

 _”Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got ‘til it's gone.”_   
Joni Mitchell – Big Yellow Taxi

+++++++++++++++++++++++++SPNSPNSPN++++++++++++++++++++++++

“This is a freaking ghost town,” Sam huffed.

Dust kicked up around their heels. Behind them a broken old gate banged in the wind.

“It’s cool, right Sammy?” Dean beamed, almost bouncing as he walked, “like when we travelled back to gank that phoenix?”

“Yeah, right Dean,” Sam gazed wide eyed at the burst of enthusiasm his brother seemed to summon out of the blue. He shook his head in a combination of rue and wonder. 

For Sam the eerie deserted street of ramshackle buildings was too reminiscent of Cold Oak. He repressed a shudder, thankful that Dean’s brain had not followed the same route. The older Winchester had enough heaped on his plate.

“Yeah,” Dean continued, gesturing with his trigger finger, “Bang Bang I shot him down. Bang Bang. He hit the ground.”

“Come on, Nancy Sinatra. Let’s do this.” Sam gave a single chuckle at Dean’s antics.

Dean harrumphed, “Gotta go with the good times.”

“You wore a blanket.” Sam reminded.

“And you… and you stepped in horseshit.”

“I would prefer if your trip down memory lane took a different direction,” Castiel winced behind them, “that time was not pleasant for me.”

Dean managed to look chastened while still taking in a horseshoe decorated saloon sign with awed wide eyes, “Yeah, uh-huh, sorry Cas, we won’t mention when you were running around with Crowley behind our backs, if you don’t mention when I was.”

“Dean!” Sam chastened with the best bitch-face he could manage. “Focus.”

Some things just were not for joking about, but he never could guess where Dean would draw his version of that line.

Gadreel moved ahead of Castiel. He tightened his eyes, peering towards a house at the end of the stretch. He lifted his arm and pointed.

“Someone’s gearing up to enter the Philadelphia Flower Show.” Dean commented.

Sam eye-rolled, wondering if Dean had made up that event. As they approached, his own lips parted, “Wow.”

A two storey colonial style home was mostly hidden behind layers and tiers of plants. A kaleidoscope of colors and shapes dazzled the eye. European bluebells mixed it with Japanese Orchids, Australian fire bushes, verdant native succulents, tiny star shaped yellow irises, and tall Egyptian bulrushes. Spring tulips and August dahlias bloomed under fruit laden apple trees. 

“It is covered in angel warding.” Gadreel’s gaze spanned left to right and up to down, roving over the Enochian which was invisible to the human eye.

“Some of these sigils are ancient,” Castiel was unable to keep how impressed he was from bleeding into his voice.

“Nothin’ excluding hunters?” Dean checked.

“Or Legacies?” Sam added.

“Or Knights of Hell?” Dean mumbled, gaining another Sam glare.

“Or vessels?” Sam popped in his own awkward subject.

Gadreel paused to consider their multiple questions, while Castiel moved stealthily to check the warding on the rear of the building. 

Dean looked impatient but Sam stilled his brother with a raised palm. He was willing to give Gadreel time to process the meaning of Ithuriel’s warding.

“Same pattern repeating.” Castiel called as he returned.

“You will be able to enter.” Gadreel concluded. “However Ithuriel almost certainly knows that we are here.”

“Super.” Dean deadpanned.

“And,” the angel continued, pointing to the left upper storey window, “this sigil is Old Enochian for ‘foresight’.”

“He will have been alerted to our plans.” Castiel curled his lip.

“How alerted?” Sam probed for details, “Like he got an advance copy aka Chuck’s writings, or did something ping in his inbox like ‘hello you’re being sought out by someone or something vague’?”

Both their angels looked stumped.

“We don’t know.” Castiel spoke.

“This is ancient magic.” Gadreel repeated with sadness. “I apologize, Sam. It reaches beyond the expanse of my knowledge.”

Sam gripped Gadreel’s jacket sleeve, grasping into denim with forceful meaning, “You did good. We know now that the douche is probably expecting us.”

“Plan B.” Dean nodded.

“I don’t like it.” Sam huffed. Icy cold slid down his spine. Was he being watched? Did it matter? He pulled his shoulders back. “Things rarely go well when they know we are coming.”

“If he knows we are coming he shoulda baked a cake.” Dean whistled.

“Should we make a tactical retreat?” Gadreel suggested. “Reformulate our approach?”

Sam shook his head. “Plan C, maybe?”

“Or a mash up?” Dean seemed unfazed. He hitched his duffel with the two amphora of holy oil over his shoulder, causing the clay jugs to clatter together. “We got a doozy of a plan in the makings, and plenty of contingencies covered, and y’know, he just might open up the door and ask us how he can help. I am charming, y’know?”

“Did you dust your cheerios with happy powder this morning?” Sam looked in disbelief. He was beginning to be concerned that Dean was faking it, that this was some sort of false cheer to camouflage a spike in how the Mark of Cain was impacting him. Alternatively the Mark could be messing with Dean’s emotional balance, which was a pretty daunting prospect as they prepared for the upcoming confrontation.

“Nah,” Dean shrugged his free shoulder, “I figure this dick will help us or he won’t. He’ll have intel or he won’t. End of the day, I still got the infernal tat on my arm. What’s the point in going all in, if you got no cards in your hand?”

“That is the most pessimistic optimistic thing I’ve ever…” Sam’s voice trailed away. He took a breath. “I guess we’re going in.” 

“Sam.” Gadreel cocked his head.

Sam followed a few paces to the right. It was a semblance of privacy. Dean was not hard of hearing, and Castiel, as he had reminded them in the past, was an angel.

“I know my words do not hold as much weight due to my reputation for cowardice.” The angel began.

“Stop,” Sam winced. He couldn’t listen to such an opinion, and he simply did not believe that about the taller angel. It was fact that Gadreel had chosen to hide in the past; from other angels, inside Sam… but it was also true that he had displayed great bravery and determination. Sam pushed as much sincerity as he could into his voice, hoping to be believed. “Don’t, just, don’t begin that way. Tell me your thoughts. I’m listening.”

Looking distinctly uncomfortable, Gadreel sucked his lips thin and bit down. “I fear a trap.”

“We expect a trap.” Sam responded, careful and even. Perhaps Gadreel merely needed reassurance. “The plan’s got legs and branches. Plan A goes skew-ways, we got a line of dominos lined up to deal. We get inside that door, Dean or me, we’re gonna find a way to damage one of those visible blood sigils, just like you and Cas explained.”

Gadreel still didn’t look happy.

“Look, Man, I know Dean is on the loop-di-loop today, but he’s got a point, you’d be surprised how many creatures, monsters, angels, like the sound of their own voice. Gifted a receptive, or captive, audience, they wanna tell their tale. We get Ithuriel talking, and he spills the goods, we mightn’t need the Cas’n’Gadreel cavalry.”

“I hope so.” Gadreel nodded, “It would be best if Castiel and I can respect his request for exile and not cross his threshold. But Sam, do not hesitate. Use your holy oil. Do not flinch in setting it alight, as he will be fast, faster than you can imagine. We will be there as soon as we can enter. Stay safe, Sam.”

Sam appreciated his concern, his care, and his support more than he could say. Here mid-action, with his brother and Castiel at their sides, preparing to face a potentially formidable foe, he wished he had the time and the words to explain how much Gadreel having his back meant to him. He wished he hadn’t rushed so much back in Lebanon, that he had taken Gadreel aside and explored their nascent attraction, maybe shown with touch and affection how much he wanted this new relationship in his life. But there wasn’t time. All he could do was run a hand through Gadreel’s short hair. He cupped the side of his neck, pulling him closer, almost knocking their foreheads together and whispered into the angel’s barely parted lips, “Thank you.” 

“Get a fricking room.” Dean snorted. “Come on, Samantha, time’s a running.”

Castiel cleared his throat, “You stay safe too, Dean.”

“You know me, Cas.” Dean winked.

“Too well,” Castiel half-smiled, “Stay safe.”

“Right, yeah, you too, Cas.” Dean’s cheeks flushed.

They were hopeless, blushing and smiling just for each other, but never doing more. Sam watched a small satisfied smile break on Castiel’s face. With a quick wish for his brother or Cas to finally make a move, Sam tipped Cas’s arm.

“If you’re waiting for the right time, or a peaceful time, or for Dean or you to be ready,” he whispered quickly into the angel’s ear, “Don’t. Gadreel has shown me, there’s never a ‘right’ time, there’s only now.”

Leaving a speechless Cas behind, Sam strode to join Dean at the gate to the unnatural blooming garden. Over his shoulder he threw a quick quirked lip smile of okey dokie-ness, that he didn’t really feel, towards Gadreel. He couldn’t fool his angel. Gadreel’s brows tightened but he gave a firm nod to show he had seen.

Dean jerked his head towards the house, asking if Sam was ready. Beady eyed for every nuance of Dean’s behavior, Sam caught a chink in his brother’s false bravado. Before he reached for the garden gate catch, the older Winchester scrubbed his hand over his lower face. It was a tell. Dean was more concerned and more invested in this than he had let be known. 

“Let’s do this.” Dean growled, rounding his shoulders and pushing the silent gate open. 

In front of them the house door swung open. The agency of the action remained unseen. If ice slid down his back before, now Sam broke out in unpleasant gooseflesh. There was power in this place. 

Taking point, he stepped over the threshold, as Dean bellowed out a ‘Hello’.

The very moment that both Winchesters set foot inside, the scene changed from a typical suburban foyer to a Versailles style opulent hall with white walls and large gilt framed mirrors.

“Freaking angel fashion, did they all stop looking at décor in the seventeenth century?” Dean looked distinctly unimpressed. “’s just like the Green Room, Sam.”

“I designed that room.” An offended voice preceded a large eared unremarkable man with flat greasy chocolate brown hair. Ithuriel’s vessel was young, maybe mid-twenties. His visage belied his true age, which could cause a disconnect in hunters inexperienced in dealing with the angelic. Sam wondered if sneaky ones hiding their power, like this dude or Metatron, deliberately chose such inoffensive meatsuits. It didn’t fool him. 

Ithuriel continued to glare at Dean.

“Way’d it go, Dean.” Sam hissed, peeved at getting off on the wrong foot with their target.

“I kinda liked the Green Room,” Dean backtracked. “It had a certain something, until the door vanished.”

Ithuriel’s lips twitched. He contorted his voice into a mocking snarl. “Dean and Samuel Winchester, to what to I owe the pleasure? Why have you disturbed my peace?”

Sam let the smallest expulsion of held breath. His guard stayed up 110%, but they had not immediately had to fight, or been blown to atoms.

Dean spread his hands palm open in a gesture of truce. Ever so slightly, his right pinkie finger extended too far, pointing near the floor beyond Sam’s leg. Straining his pupils to look only with his eyes, Sam noticed behind the gilt embellished leg of a display table, their target sigil decorated the otherwise pristine looking wall. Predictably Winchester Luck meant it was placed at an inconvenient level for subtly scratching through while the angel wasn’t looking.

“We aren’t here for a fight.” Sam prepared to attempt diplomacy.

“Despite my wards indicating that two angels approached with you, and both remain outside?” The ancient one interjected with bite.

Sam swallowed. It was time to take a risk. He met the angel’s glare. “Cards on the table?”

Ithuriel nodded with narrowed eyes. Dean looked wary.

“My brother bears the Mark of Cain.” Sam puffed. “We hope you have knowledge of how we can, what we have to do to, remove it?”

With a harsh bark of laughter complete with puffing snort, “Remove the Mark of Cain? Do you take me for a fool?”

Sam blinked at the angel’s disbelief of his openness.

“You come in here bearing holy oil and angel blades! Who are you working for? Did the new regime send you as bounty hunters to return with the _errant rogue_?”

“No. We came to ask…” Dean tried through gritted teeth. Closed fists showed his temper on the rise.

“You will hand over your weapons,” Ithuriel demanded, a glow of power lighting the back of his eyes, “and face the consequences of coming here.”

A cast of Dean’s pupils towards Sam was the only indication of Plan F (aka we’re fucked, go for it Sammy). Sam stooped to slide his angel blade across the ground. Dean flung his before taking the strap of his bag off his shoulder. A victorious smile tilted Ithuriel’s lips, but Dean didn’t simply hand over their holy oil. He threw the bag at their opponent, who instinctively reached to catch them.

Sam dived, full body length, stretching his hand and Ruby’s knife to stab through the blood sigil.

Dean attempted a rounding body kick at Ithuriel but was flung through the air, sliding across the marble floor and into a leg of the ornate central table.

The sigil glowed. Then the light from it dissipated. 

Castiel and Gadreel burst through a door, which appeared simultaneously with their entry, from the rear of the long room. Both seemed nonplussed for an instant by the ‘green room’ interior of the suburban home. It was enough for their elder foe to gather his wits. 

“Trespassers.” Ithuriel bellowed in accusation. 

Light shot from his hands hitting both Castiel and Gadreel smack bang in the middle of their chests. It did not seem to harm them, as fellow angels, although Castiel winced at the impact. Rather it caused both to stumbled back slightly following the trajectory of the shots. With a few words of power in Enochian, circles of holy oil blazed around their feet.

They had expected Ithuriel to be wily. A trainer of garrisons was bound to have tricks up his sleeve, but things had gone south fast. Sam closed his eyes for a beat, racking his brain for an out.

“Castiel,” Ithuriel prowled closer to his target, ignoring or forgetting the human threat. “At my mercy, full of stolen grace that bubbles and contorts in its unnatural cage. Does it make you sick? In here?”

Ithuriel flicked off the middle button of Castiel’s shirt with the tip of his angel blade, before drawing blood from a shallow wound.

“Don’t.” Dean growled. 

“I will do what I want.” The angel crowed. “There is no one to stop me, no Father, no archangels, no rule. Castiel saw to that.”

Castiel looked pained. “Brother, we came in peace.”

“Sneaking in the back door.” Ithuriel scoffed, “With back up.”

He turned his attention on Gadreel. 

“Who did you rope into your schemes, Castiel? Or has Hannah sent you a warrior in your mission to round up all who want nothing more to do with Heaven?” He crossed the short space between his prisoners. “I listen to the celestial wavelengths. I am not ignorant of developments. And look at what she sent you, huh, he’s sweating, Castiel. Did you get an untested rookie?”

Sam held his breath. 

Gadreel straightened his spine, meeting Ithuriel’s eyes.

The elder angel sucked his breath in recognition. 

With a cry of “Traitor,” in the blink of an eye, he drew his blade back and stabbed forward.

Hampered by the containing fire, Gadreel could only dance sideways and grab for the blade. It sliced his arm and through his side, horrific brightness escaping his body.

As Gadreel slumped to the floor, Dean grabbed one of their blades from the table and, moving like lightning, jumped Ithuriel. An animalistic, almost fearfully demonic, growl broke from his throat as he ran Ithuriel completely through. Another blaze of terrible grace light signaled the end of one of the oldest angels.

Sam experienced Ithuriel’s end as if it happened on screen, on a dusty movie reel from the Men of Letters store. As the dead angel’s illusion of grandeur crumbled into the dust around them, Sam stepped into a reality of fetid air, grime, mould, cobwebs, decay, and Gadreel mortally wounded, braced at an unnatural angle against a paint flaked doorway.

“Sorry, Sam, we’ll never know what he knew,” Dean huffed, poking his boot into Ithuriel’s ribs.

Sam couldn’t hear him. Later there would be time for regret about another dead end. Now, Gadreel lay slumped over, pale and unmoving, light continuing to leak from his side between his splayed fingers…

… and Sam couldn’t bear it.

He had lost so many people, too many people, family, friends, those he loved, and he couldn’t. He wouldn’t do it again.

“Cas,” His voice scraped across his dry parched throat. “Can you?”

Dean had freed Castiel from his circle and he had scuffed out the fire around Gadreel too.

“I’m sorry, Sam,” Castiel’s eyes were dark and wide with sympathy. “This grace, it strains to heal my small wound. I do not have enough reserves. I am sorry, Brother, there is nothing I can do.”

Gadreel made a faint headshake. “No regrets, Castiel.” 

He gazed up at Sam, who crouched to be nearer, balls of his feet on the persistent curved marked scar of oil burn. “Sam, I wish…”

“No.” Sam refused to hear. He grasped the hand not covering the awful wound. Disregarding cold slick blood and fluids from Gadreel’s arm injury, Sam squeezed and gripped on tight. “No goodbyes. Not losing you. Not losing Dean. No-one gets left behind.”

“My grace is thinning.” Gadreel stated. “It will not be long. I had a brief second chance.”

“No.” Sam repeated, anger blazing inside smothering sparking sorrow. “I won’t allow it.”

He wanted to press his full body unto Gadreel, use his whole being as a dam to stop light seeping from his weakening body.

“It is pointless. I am lost.”

“No.” Sam growled again. “Goddamn it. There must be some way.”

“My grace is almost gone.” With a closed mouth smile Gadreel simply beseeched, “Sam, do not mourn.”

“You don’t give up.” Sam shot back. “I mean it, Gadreel. Don’t you give up. You fight this. There must be something. It can’t be fatal. If we get you back to the bunker, you could recuperate, slowly, might take time.”

“Sam.” Castiel put his hand on Sam’s sleeve. “He had lost a lot of grace, and blood.”

Casting his eyes down, Sam could see blood pooling from beneath Gadreel’s hip. Grimy snarls of black dirt swam on the surface of spreading red.

“Dean, get the first aid kit. We’ll bind it.” Sam barked the order at his brother, who blinked, slow to move. Sam perceived it as an eternity before the force of his glare impacted Dean enough to get him going for their supplies.

“Thank you, Sam, but stemming my physical wound will not replenish my grace.” Gadreel licked his lips. He tugged weakly on Sam’s hand, “Will you sit with me?”

“While you die?” Sam practically howled. His chest tightened vice-like. His inner child bawled that he never got to keep a friend. His adult brain point blank refused to consider that conclusion. He raced through scenarios, possibilities, down dead end alleys and back again. Tossing his head toward Castiel, he pleaded, “Is there nothing we can do?”

With sucked in lips, Castiel shook his head ruefully. “If I possessed my own grace, I could donate a measure, enough to allow healing to begin. If you still had a little of his grace in you, Sam, but we don’t.”

Searching his mind in desperation for anything they could do to save Gadreel, anyone they could call on in time to heal him. He blurted out, “Cas, is there someone you could call?”

“If they came, they would not aid me.” Gadreel expressed in resignation, his pariah status biting into Sam’s core. A rattle developed in his breathing. He stretched his neck as if trying to relieve his pain. With a note of unwelcome acceptance, he pleaded brokenly, “Be my Rit Zin.”

Not knowing if Gadreel meant for Castiel or for Sam to put him out of his misery, the hunter would not listen. He hushed the fallen angel by pressing their closed lips tight together. Pulling back, Sam rested his finger against Gadreel’s dry lips, unwilling to let him repeat his plea.

“No freaking way.” Sam denied. “You left grace in me. Latch on to what’s left. Use it.”

Gadreel looked at him with sad eyes. “Not enough.”

Sam wheeled on Cas. He sucked a breath, daring to snatch onto a slither of hope. “There might be. Remember, you couldn’t extract every particle of Gadreel’s grace? Remember, it was too dangerous. There must be a little. What do we do?”

“Sam. Virtually nothing remains.” Castiel tired to reason.

“Nothing what?” Dean asked, dropping beside Sam with their emergency medical kit.

“Gadreel needs a grace boost. Only hope. Could be a piece still in me.” Sam surmised in rapid shot words. 

“I don’t like the sound of that,” Dean bristled. “How does he get it? Take you over?”

Gadreel gulped. “No. Not effective, and it is too late to change vessels.”

Sam pinned Castiel, staring with the full force of his urgency, “Tell me.”

“You are human. I am not sure it will work, but you must access the grace in your soul and pull at it. Pass it to Gadreel. There are Enochian words that will assist but you have to use your willpower and effort to succeed. Gadreel will make it so he is open to receive and absorb the grace.” Castiel pursed his lips, “We have a chance. A very slim one. You know how to access internal power. You will have to reconnect to that ability, Sam.”

“What?” Dean squawked.

Sam nodded gravely. He understood. Finding celestial grace hiding in his soul sounded a lot more difficult than tapping into the exhilarating power of demon blood, but if the practicalities were the same, then it was possible. One final glance at dimming light emerging from between Gadreel’s fingers and a pinkish bloodied fleck on his lips was enough to seal the deal.

“Hit me, Cas. What do I do?”

“Sam,” Dean warned. “What’s this gonna do to you?”

“Nothing, Dean.” Sam glossed over any fears he also held, “And if it does, we’ll deal with it, but this is Gadreel’s only chance. And I am not losing him. Do you hear me?”

“And damn the consequences?” Dean returned, but there was a faint conciliatory slant of understanding to his posture. 

“I gotta try,” Sam gulped. He tasted ashes and dust. Hopelessness showed its face, but Sam turned his back on it. “I havta try…. If I don’t try…”

Dean swallowed hard. He looked at Cas, who locked eyes with him. With a sparse nod, Castiel communicated that the effort, though likely futile, was not perilous for Sam. 

“I get it.” Dean gave as a terse blessing.

“Will you?” Sam licked his lips, beseeching Gadreel with his gaze. “Gadreel, my friend, my… Will you let me try this?”

Almost as if it was his final parting gift, Gadreel returned liquid gaze, profound and filled with affection. “Yes, Sam.”

“Let go of Gadreel’s hand.” Castiel directed.

With reluctance, Sam obeyed, painful as it was to withdraw his touch.

“Kneel in front of him, so you are level. It may work better if you close your eyes. Focus, Sam. Focus. Use your determination, your drive to save Gadreel, and find the grace deep inside.”

Darkness, his own heavy deep nasal breathing, lazaring in on his centre, sharpening all his desperation and need to save Dean, save Gadreel, not to lose anyone, the love he wanted, the future he needed, the conviction that there was something still there, some angelic power deep deep inside.

He dug deeper, tugging and drawing on a part of his being that he had not attempted to touch in years. Buried in the depths of his soul was grace, power that could heal Gadreel. He trembled. He inhaled hard, body demanding oxygen. A trickle of blood fell from his nose. His brother shouted something at him. Grabbing hold of the celestial remnant inside, Sam ripped at it.

Multitudes of wings beat in his eardrums. He soared and dived. Six wings unfurled from his spine and he was taller, taller than seven feet, eight, taller than the buildings of the abandoned settlement, wider than the desert. Bright dazzling power sang through his veins. It strained to spill from his body and whiteout the world, but Sam kept hold on it with might and will.

From a distance, intoned words of power in Castiel’s voice penetrated his mind. With massive effort, Sam played back the Enochian in his own voice. 

Feeling the grace rise, he shot open his eyes. If he’d pictured anything, it was light leaving his mouth like an angel or demon de-possessing a vessel, put unknown to his conscious mind, Sam had raised two joined fingers and pressed them to Gadreel’s temple. A continuous flow of light, steady and powerful, moved from Sam, binding, healing, and remaking Gadreel anew. The angel’s face appeared to glow from within. Energy wrapped around him like fast moving vines, holding him up before merging into his body. Sam saw his vicious wound close up and heal. He sighed in relief, shoulders sagging as all taut tension left his body. 

When it was done, Sam felt whole, at peace, relieved and awed. Gadreel, looking equally stunned, hefted his healed body forward to catch Sam in a grateful, amazed and loving hug. He pressed a kiss behind Sam’s ear, whispering devoted gratitude.

Sam quipped, “I gotcha.”

“You did.” Gadreel promised, “You do.”

“Thought y’said there wasn’t enough.” Dean puffed above them, “’Cause that was about as opposite as hellfire and holy water.”

“Unexpected,” Castiel commented with understatement.

“Y’freaking glowed, Sammy,” Dean whistled.

“It wasn’t mine.” Gadreel muttered into Sam’s skin.

“You said what?” Dean jumped.

“Grace was Lucifer’s.” Sam mumbled back, not letting go of Gadreel for one moment, holding him there, healed and whole. Whether through blessedness or devilry, the most salient and amazing result was Gadreel, safe, alive, not on the precipice of death, and in Sam’s arms.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++SPNSPNSPN+++++++++++++++++++++++++


	8. Interlude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for long gaps between chapter postings. Real life has been very busy, and I also was writing two stories at once. Then I had the fantastic experience of being at Asylum14. Interesting for this story was when Jared was asked a question about playing Gadreel. He spoke about how Gadreel had lived an eternity of shame and regret, and how he understood him and liked him, also liked how everything every emotion was portrayed subtly with him, and that in the end Gadreel did the right thing.
> 
> P.S. As the SPN family, I’m sure we all have Jared in our thoughts at the moment and are wishing him well. 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++SPNSPNSPN++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 _“Forsaken, almost human, He sank beneath your wisdom like a stone._  
_And you want to travel with him. And you want to travel blind. And you think maybe you'll trust him. For he's touched your perfect body with his mind.”_  
Leonard Cohen – Suzanne

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++SPNSPNSPN+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Insistent rapping on his door prompted Sam to lift his heavy head from his hands. 

“Go away.” It was a whisper, hoarse and broken, too soft to pass through barriers. 

The knocking crescendo segued from the intro of Paranoid to the beat of the Black Sabbath song.

Sam sighed lengthily. Before Dean could move on to his favorite Zep numbers, the younger Winchester cleared his throat, “Come in, Dean.”

“You eat?” Dean stuck his head round the door, using his query as a greeting, then wrinkling his nose, “Or shower? Or change?”

“I don’t need a nursemaid,” Sam huffed. 

“Yeah? Coz you look like crap.”

“Dean, listen,” Sam began to plead for some space, some time to get his head together.

“Nuh huh, Sammy. You get on your oversized feet and come up to the library.” Dean scratched the back of his neck. “I’m not entertaining your moping morose angel any longer.”

“Dean…”

“And I caught a case.”

Sam’s breath shuddered, “I’m not. Dean. I…”

“Nothing like jumping back on the horse, hey Sammy?”

Dean was trying to help. This is what Dean did. It was what Sam had done in the past. You dusted yourself down and marched on. Work through it. Hunting. Saving people. Making a difference. 

“I don’t know…” Sam swallowed hard, looking at his hands, “I don’t know if I’m safe.”

Dean snorted. “You don’t know if you’re safe? Geez, Sam. Seriously? Come on, if I can stow my crap…” He wiggled his shirt sleeve covered Mark of Cain arm at his brother. “Nothing monumental, Man. Possessed pickup truck, over in Spenser, Iowa. Kasem College Student says it had a mind of its own.”

“I’m not…” Sam paused. “I need a pass on this one. You could take Cas?”

Dean huffed a laugh. “Have you seen Cas’s FBI technique?”

Sam’s lips twitched of their own accord. “He’s direct.”

“You sure?” Dean peered at him. “You’ll come out of this room though? It reeks in here.”

“Does not.” Sam shook his head. It felt lighter with a slight grin on his face. “I’ll shower and eat, if you take Cas with you as back-up. You could be counselors or reporters, y’know? Doesn’t have to be agents.”

Dean hummed. “Yeah, I’ll thinka something awesome. You gotta deal.”

Sam waited for Dean to turn tail, but his brother kept standing inside his door.

“Yeah?” Sam raised his brows.

“Shower’s down the hall.”

“Give me a break.” Sam huffed but he eased up from the hollow in his mattress, making for his drawers to root out some clean threads.

“Good,” Dean gave simple approval as he closed the door behind him.

Sam stilled completely as another voice drifted from immediately outside. He cocked his ear to pick up muffled concerned words. Gadreel was asking if Sam was well and if he was going on the hunt.

“Dunno,” Dean replied. “You try.”

Sam rolled his eyes. Dean and Cas were perfectly capable of dealing with a ghost truck. What if Sam got angry or cornered or desperate? Now that he had tapped the hidden remnant of Lucifer’s grace, would it be released again? Would his eyes glow blue with celestial power? Would others hunt him like the monster he long ago feared he would become? Did this change him? Could he trust himself? 

Gadreel’s knock was singular. “May I come in?”

The door eased open.

Entering tentatively, as if Sam would deny him. Gadreel’s hand lingered along the edge of the door.

Sam couldn’t look him in the eye. He looked at Gadreel’s worn Converse, the trailing threadbare hem of his jeans. He chanced glances at the angel’s hands, his brown tee, the toggle of his hoodie string. 

“How are you, Sam?”

Opening his mouth to gloss over everything, or maybe reverse the question, or apologize for infecting Gadreel with the serpent’s essence, instead what came out was, “I can feel it. It’s crawling through my veins, inside me.”

Suddenly Gadreel was there, inside his personal space, taking Sam’s wrists in his strong hands, holding him steady, holding him upright, heads level, breathed air between them.

“You cannot feel it.”

“I can,” Sam pleaded, “I can feel it now. I want to rip it out with my nails.”

Tightening his grip, Gadreel insisted, “I will not permit you inflict injury upon yourself.”

Sam blinked. 

Gadreel’s punishing hold eased to running his hands up and down Sam’s forearms. “Sam?”

He nodded shakily, prepared to answer.

“Did you feel it previously? Did you feel my grace previously?”

A slight shake for negative.

“It is an illusion. It’s not real.”

Sam sniffled. “I’m hallucinating again? Frigging super.” He puffed and pulled away, stepping back so his legs hit the edge of his bed. “Sorry, Gadreel. Sarcasm is the refuge of the desperate. I know it’s there, in me. He’s still in me.”

Gadreel nodded solemnly. “It is not a hallucination. It is an afterimage. The sun seared on a retina. The shadow of our wings in death.”

Sam sucked a breath. Barely audible he whispered, “Glad didn’t see that.”

“I am too,” Gadreel confessed. He pressed his hand to his own sternum. “And now his grace is in here. If it was not, then I would not be. You shared this for me. I am nothing but grateful, Sam.”

“So now we’re both corrupted.” Sam ground out, unable to parse thanks for contaminating Gadreel.

“Sam,” Gadreel smiled gently, “Although shame fills me at how it occurred, it remains fact that you have held me inside, been my vessel. Whatever is in you, I have seen. You are not corrupted.”

Sam opened his mouth to object, to speak of demon blood and bad decisions.

“To others, who do not know us, we may seem so.” A cloud of ancient pain darkened green eyes, “I am the betrayer of humanity.”

“And I am the boy with the demon blood,” Sam choked, “The bringer of the apocalypse.”

“We are not those things, those labels. You saved the world, Sam Winchester.”

“And you sacrificed yourself for Heaven, Gadreel.” Sam reached out.

His hand was taken. 

“We are whole.” Gadreel affirmed.

“We’re alive.” Sam chuffed, “That’s always a plus.”

“And I believe we are about to shower.” Gadreel’s face eased into a tentative smile.

“We? We are? Are we?” Sam grinned, dimples forming.

“I have read of something called watersports.”

Sam cracked up. “No, no, Gadreel. We’re not. I don’t think you understand what that means.”

“I want you to teach me.” The angel replied earnestly.

Stemming his laughter, Sam pulled the other towards the bunker’s huge tiled shower. Thoughts of soaping up Gadreel’s toned body with his bare hands temporarily shelved Sam’s worries.

“We have not gone so far with each other,” Gadreel posed statue-like, only his socks and watch hiding those final areas of skin.

“We don’t have to,” Sam tilted his head from below, where he was seated on a marble bench peeling off his own footwear. “If you’re not ready. I get it. We can take it slow.”

“No. I desire this, desire you.” Gadreel swallowed, opening his body language, displaying his upturned palms, “I want to replace all remnant of him.”

Sam quirked a wry upturned smile. Then he stood, closing the divide, pressing his lips to Gadreel’s. The angel opened slowly, tentatively tasting what Sam offered.

“Make me forget.” Sam asked, “Just for now, for here.”

“Gladly.”

Sam’s hand trailed back as he moved to adjust the shower dials. From the corner of his eye he caught Gadreel bending to add his watch and socks neatly to his pile of clothing. He was wet and anticipating, breath shortening, when Gadreel placed his feet each side of his. 

“Sam,” came as expelled air. A hand rose to card fingers through his hair. 

Sam knocked his forehead against Gadreel’s, letting the water fall over them, spray washing away, purifying by touch.

If they were in a ratty motel, the water would have run cold, but there was some sort of Men of Letters magic in the bunker’s plumbing. Gadreel seemed content to stay as two apostrophes in the mist. Finally, with a strange welcome peace in his heart, Sam extended his wrinkled fingertips for shower gel. He turned Gadreel, who was willing to cede to Sam’s wishes, and used the heel of his palms to massage spicy shower gel. Slow circles, fascinated by the yielding firm muscles under his touch. A stray thought of doing this with Amelia, with Jess, was pushed away. He’d never with Ruby, that had been crazy wanton hungry sex. But Sam was no supreme expert, not versed in wiles, ways, positions, like Dean probably was. At least nothing consensual…

“Let me,” Gadreel swiveled round to return the favor. 

His motion must have slowed. 

Gadreel’s fingers swept across Sam’s cheekbone, “Forget about Hell, about sorrows and pain.”

“Did you read my mind?” The question was guileless, not accusatory.

“No, Sam. I did not. I would not. You are tense.”

“Okay,” Sam plastered on a grin. He turned and pressed back for contact against Gadreel’s chest. “Your turn, Wing-boy.”

Gadreel hummed at the challenge, arms wrapping round, then travelling down. His massage technique began at Sam’s butt, swiping suds round hips and down Sam’s happy trail. Trills of arousal flickered deep in Sam’s groin. He let go, allowed his angel to take care of him. Once satisfied that massage standards were met, Gadreel turned Sam pulling him in for a deep lingering oxygen stealing kiss. With one hand Sam tugged him closer, with the other he drove his fingers through the short hairs at the back of Gadreel’s neck. Released, Sam moved down to nip at Gadreel’s hardened nipples. He traced each with his lips, scraping across with teeth. Gadreel liked that. Sam filed it for future reference as the angel panted into steamy air. Dipping down blindly, Sam discovered just how nipple sensitive Gadreel was. Straining with precome beading, Sam took him in hand, squeezing the underside of his length, trying to create a twisting peaking friction.

“Sam, so good, oh I did not know, so good.”

“I hear ya,” Sam affirmed, looking into dilated pupils, before caressing his lightly stubbled jaw. More soap suds, a single rolling play of Gadreel’s sack, a knuckle stimulating his perineum, and the angel was done. 

“I… Sam,” Gadreel pleaded before words of Enochian broke from his throat. “IN. OLANI GIL OL OECRIMI OL, DLVGAR OL TOFGLO, OLANI VNIG OL EMNA. HOATH OL, Sam.”

Intensity made the essential meaning transparent. It impregnated the air with deep abiding praising love. Sam felt English too normal, too everyday. Words of Latin spilled forth, a quote from Seneca long ago seen, “’Si vis amari, ama.’ Te Amo.”

“I wish to be loved, I love in return.” Gadreel modified the phrase in translation, his eye crinkles perking with a beaming smile.

Sam leaned in for a tender gentle pressing of lips. “You make me feel…”

He couldn’t put it into words in any language, maybe cherished or special or worthy, but none of those fitted perfectly.

Never dimming his affectionate smile, Gadreel dropped to his knees.

“Gad, you don’t need to…”

“OLANI GIL OL… I want to.” Huge liquid eyes gazed upwards, as if Sam had hung the moon.

Warm wet heat enveloped Sam’s neglected hard on. He threw his head back, skull hitting tiles, permitting Gadreel to take control. Long calloused hands worked his length, twisting in fabulous replication of his own actions. The slip slide of fingers, lips, suction of tongue and cheeks, drove Sam over the edge. He reached forward sinking nails and holding on to the meat of Gadreel’s shoulders.

With a much less elegant grunting grinding moan, Sam’s hips shuddered, climaxing. “I’m coming,” he warned.

Gadreel took him deeper, longer, held him, as Sam trembled and cried out. 

Shower spray rolled down the angel’s face, removing all evidence. Before they had to re-enter the world outside, Sam pulled Gadreel as close as he could, skin sliding against skin. Without fear of rejection or derision, Sam opened his inner self, admitting “I want this.”

“I want to give you this.” Gadreel vowed, embracing Sam in speech and act.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++SPNSPNSPN++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:
> 
> IN. OLANI GIL OL OECRIMI OL, DLVGAR OL TOFGLO, OLANI VNIG OL EMNA. HOATH OL, Sam.  
> Mine. I want to praise you, give you everything, I need you here, love you, Sam.
> 
> Si vis amari, ama.  
> If you wish to be loved, love.  
> Te Amo  
> I love you


	9. Seeking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More apologies at the length of time between chapters.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++SPNSPNSPN+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 _“The only heaven I’ll be sent to is when I’m alone with you.”_ Hozier, Take Me to Church

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++SPNSPNSPN++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Pinching his temples, Sam groaned, “My brain hurts.”

“Do you need anything?”

His moan had been expelled believing he was alone, but he’d temporarily overlooked angelic hearing abilities. The younger Winchester stretched his legs under the library table. He looked up from his laptop and a long heavy ledger with a tilted smile. Gadreel was drying his hands on a dish towel, standing under the arch between the library and the war-room. Sam took a beat for an admiring gaze; tall erect carriage ready to move on Sam’s say, how he had rolled up the sleeves of his borrowed brown shirt with white buttons, how his green eyes had softened in loving concern.

“I’m good.”

“Is there anything I can do?” Gadreel offered, settling the towel over the back of a chair as he approached.

Wondering if the angel could be bored with mundane chores, Sam huffed widening his grin. He used his right hand to shove out the next chair. “You could keep me company?”

“Gladly.” Gadreel dropped into the offered seat.

There was something comfortable about having his angel present by Sam’s side. After sparse moments of silence, Gadreel cleared his throat and swept a hand over Sam’s papers.

“Do you wish to divide your load?”

Sam shook his head. “Just got this one on the agenda today.” He tapped the open page, making a jocular comment. “I’m starting to think the Men of Letters had a worrying obsession with cataloging and recording every freaking thing.”

“This was their purpose.” Gadreel remained in serious mode.

Internally Sam rolled his eyes, knowing the angel hadn’t intended droll sarcasm. 

“This ledger documents arcane texts that the Men of Letters succeeded in acquiring and ones they wanted to get their hands on …” Sam paused to concern how to shorten a very long story, “It was completed by Cuthbert Sinclair.”

Gadreel nodded his interest.

“He was Master of Spells until they kicked his ass out for being seriously twisted and dangerous. It’s mostly Latin, which is fine. But when he wants to be a sneaky shit he does chicken scratches in Mandarin.” Sam jerked his head towards his note sheets and the laptop, “I’m using the onscreen character keyboard to translate the Chinese.”

“You are leaving no stone unturned.” Gadreel’s close mouthed half smile communicated his comment as admiration.

Overleaf Sam’s research met a promising stumbling block. 

“Can you read this?” Sam’s heart picked up pace. He blew a subtle raspberry in an effort to control his inclination to race mentally ahead, imaging a potential clue. Admonishing himself to remain logical and follow any trail of crumbs in a disciplined process, Sam pushed the tome towards his angel, pointing to words in an alphabet which he couldn’t quite place. “I can read the Latin above. This page refers to lost texts. And that there says First Murderer, and that’s Cain, right? But the description is in something like Hebrew. What do you think, Gad? Can you translate?”

“It is Phoenician.” Gadreel stated, drawing his brows together.

“Okay?” Sam hummed, staying patient.

Gadreel stood to lean over the ledger, close enough for Sam to unconsciously touch his sleeve.

“An account of Cain, exiled and damned. The first murder. A spreading evil. A transcription of the original which was lost in the burning of Alexandria’s library.” Gadreel hummed in thought. “This is promising, Sam. The original may have been contemporaneous with Genesis.”

“Alexandria? Didn’t that burn, like in the fourth century? I mean, that’s pretty historical, and you gotta wonder, how old was the original?” 

Sam’s questions were rhetorical, but Gadreel seemed to be pondering them.

“Given its nature and language it is unlikely to have been written by or directed by Metatron, which is an advantage, presuming it is veracious. A lot of what is written is untrue.”

“Yeah, I get that.” Sam tried to quell his rising excitement. “But, this could be a break, and honest to God break.”

“Where is the text?” Gadreel asked, turning his head toward the corridor which led to the storage rooms.

“Ah ha,” Sam paused, “Look. There’s a slip of paper.”

Tucked into the seam was a long thin taper-like scrap of paper. Sam read Magnus’s scrawl aloud, “Took opportunity to interrogate Father Thompson’s demon subject, derogatory about our quest for knowledge but claims, falsely I assume, the Pax Hominibus and Fabula Cain were hidden under Lucifer’s Orchard.”

Gadreel’s expression was crestfallen, as if his emotions had married to Sam’s hopes. “The demon spoke nonsense.”

“Hang on,” Sam broke out a fairly smug grin. “I know where that is.”

Gadreel’s brows rose, “And will you tell me?”

“Gadreel, my friend, have you ever heard of Lucifer’s Crypts?”

 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++SPNSPNSPN+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Sam zipped up his coat against the late night chill. Gadreel, unaffected by ambient temperatures, left both his hoodie and leather jacket undone. Their breath created small puffs of dispersing moisture.

“Should we wait for Dean and Castiel? They could join us.” Gadreel attempted a repeat of the query he had made before they left the bunker, as they stole the late model Camry, and after Dean’s call received on the road that their internet ghost had been dealt with and he and Cas were on their way back to Lebanon.

Sam shook his head. His attention was divided, eyes riveted on the innocuous door that led into the warehouse and down to the crypt. He could help an unpleasant anxiety that entry might spike or call to the newly accessed Grace running through his atoms.

“I don’t want…” Sam huffed. He reached for Gadreel’s hand. “Lots of crap… I don’t want to raise Dean’s hopes, he’s doing good… better now…. and I don’t to bring him back here. I don’t want him to witness if I start freaking glowing or some shit when we get in there.”

“You won’t.” Gadreel reassured.

With a sigh, a squeeze of palms and fingers, and a determined first step they moved by the walls still daubed with red spray paint since the last Winchester visit.

“I didn’t go in the last time. I stayed outside.”

Sam grimaced, remembering how through pure willpower he tried to hold his body together, to keep going despite the trials tearing his cells apart, how Meg and he had a strange moment of bonding. He had a fleeting errant thought that maybe he was a sucker, too forgiving, not that he ever had truly forgiven Meg for all the evil she inflicted on his family, for using his hands to kill, for that nightmare week when she possessed him…. He realized he had slowed his pace and took a steadying breath. Gadreel was looking at him with worried furrowed brows. He reminded himself that Gadreel took him as his vessel for very different reasons. Still, It took an effort of will to retake hold of Gadreel’s hand. 

“We can come back.” Gadreel stopped walking. He turned to face Sam, placing his body before the hunter, halting their progress. “We can find a motel. Go out for a meal. This isn’t about Dean and Castiel joining us. It is about being ready. It is about deciding if you want to enter this place.”

“I do.” Sam protested vehemently. “I’d do anything for Dean. This place bringing up a few bad memories? We’ve faced a helluva lot worse. Come on.”

Sam dodged round, dragging Gadreel forward.

The warehouse was empty, windows boarded over with sheet metal. Sam dug his flash lamp out of his pocket. Their shoes made echoes on the cement. On the far side interior prefab office areas with broken glass windows overlooked the warehouse floor. The heavy stairwell door hung off its hinges. Someone had chained it with a padlock to the metal doorframe. Gadreel snapped the chain, lifted the door completely and propped it against the damp wall.

“Show off,” Sam ribbed lightly, raising the mood momentarily as he bumped against the angel’s shoulder.

Down below there was more evidence of token repairs. Rusting joist work held up the ceiling. A new sheet of drywall, opposite an old fire hose, could not completely hide the rubble of a cracked opening. This time they both pulled the obstacle out of their way. 

“This is it.” Gadreel intoned.

Sam nodded. He could see a vaulted chamber below. 

“I don’t get it.” Sam commented as he extended his leg over the rubble. “How is all this stuff still here? Why wasn’t it raided? Did maintenance just drywall over it? Weren’t they curious?”

Gadreel quirked his brow, pointing to a few crudely painted symbols and then at some less dusty blank shapes on the surfaces. “You must be seeking the crypt to see it, however it does look like someone was covetous.”

“Crowley.” Sam grumbled. “Took what he wanted once we were out of his frigging way.”

The crypt’s contents had certainly been disturbed. Goblets, urns, and boxes lay on their sides. A few daggers littered the floor complete with more recent cobweb decoration.

Sam huffed, pushing his hair back with his hand, “Crowley coulda got his mitts on the text.”

Gadreel seemed to consider Sam’s comment, as he moved to examine the remaining items on a table against the wall, picking up and discarding boxes that Sam suspected would’ve made his Dad’s curse box collection look like kindergarten collectables. “Your brother did not bear the Mark of Cain when you discovered this place, correct?”

Sam nodded from his curved position, checking the floor, under the central table, and in corners for anything book-like or book container like. Realizing Gadreel could not see him, Sam responded, “It was before… while I was doing the trials.”

With a rueful head shake, Gadreel beckoned him close, “… which damaged you so much,” A closed mouth exhalation through his nose and the angel had a hand placed on Sam’s lower spine drawing the hunter close. They stood side by side so Gadreel could look at three jewelry box sized heavy dark wood boxes with sigil inscribed metal banding. 

“Those?” Sam asked with a strange sort of trepidation and disbelief that they might just have found what they were looking for.

“They contain papers.” Gadreel pointed at the Enochian inscriptions. “They are not warded per se. These are warnings not to defile gifts left in tribute.”

“Don’t touch Lucifer’s stuff?” Sam half laughed. “Okay, go ahead.” 

Sam reached for the nearest one. Inside was a single thickly wrapped scroll of parchment with a wax seal. He pulled it apart and unwound the beginning. Once more he was faced with an unfamiliar alphabet written suspiciously rusty blood colored ink. Glancing over to his partner, he saw Gadreel’s nose wrinkle in disgust.

“That,” the angel virtually sneered at what Sam was holding, “is a record of demonic tributes.”

Sam let the scroll fall to his feet. His hands felt filthy. He stooped a little to wipe them on his jeans.

“This rolled calf-skin however,” Gadreel’s slight smile gave the game away, “is the transcription we seek.”

“We got it.” Sam grinned. Without forethought he leaned in to give Gadreel’s cheek a victory kiss.

The angel preened and tilted the ancient document for Sam to have a glance. He could see the text was faded but legible for those who knew Phoenician. As Sam perused the arm’s length scroll for signs of missing or damaged parts, he noticed from the corner of his eye that Gadreel’s other hand snaked onto the table surface to carefully sweep cobwebs and piled dust from a pale smooth rounded rock.

“What’s that?” Sam asked, his curiosity piqued enough to draw his gaze away from their prize.

Angelic sheepishness wasn’t something Sam had much experienced but Gadreel was managing a good impression of it.

“What is it?” He repeated.

“I would like to take this with us.” Gadreel stated with gravity.

Sam nodded and waited for an explanation while Gadreel practiced some sort of avoidance tactic by pocketing the stone and moving quickly to roll up their ancient story of Cain.

“Can I see it?”

Gadreel licked his lips. He drew the stone from his pocket. It fitted neatly into the hollow of his palm. Sam could see veins of quartz in the milky surface. It looked so smooth that it begged to be touched. He extended his pointer finger to stroke it like a newborn puppy or the warm edge of Gadreel’s bottom lip. 

Gadreel’s fingers folded over it, and as they did the little rock seemed to emit a faint glow, or maybe it was the angel’s own power.

Sam experienced a pinch of hurt, illogically feeling that he was not being trusted.

“Wait, Sam. Let me explain.” Gadreel stepped nearer, so once more they were almost pressed together. “This is a Grace Stone. This particular one is Haniel’s creation, I believe from the crystalline structure. It is also ungiven.”

“It’s what now?” Sam asked, fascinated by the slow unpeeling of his partner’s fingers.

For a moment both of them simply admired the beauty of the rounded stone.

“You have heard of Watchers?” 

Sam nodded, “I’ve read the lore.”

“They defied our Father. Took human mates, produced nephilim…” He winced, “… some were imprisoned near my cell. I would hear them, discussing their offspring, their doings on Earth. Some regretted, some were brazen in their defiance until Naomi took them away, and some were heartbroken, and some of the heartsore had secreted their Grace Stones and would use them until time and death caught up with their humans and their nephilim.”

Sam shifted his weight uncomforted by Gadreel’s melancholy tale. The victims, the wronged, and the evil-doers could not be defined in black and white. Did those long dead women willingly bear nephilim children? Was it so wrong for those Watchers to have relations with humanity? Isn’t that what he and Gadreel were doing now? Nephilim were said to be abominations, but Sam had been called the same by the first angels he met. On top of all that, reading between the lines, Sam picked up that the jailed Watchers hadn’t been sympathetic to Gadreel.

“Why would you want something associated with them?”

“Look at it, Sam,” Gadreel placed the ivory shaded quartz into Sam’s palm.

It was warm, plain, attractive, and somehow it tugged on his heartstrings with an emotion he associated with seeing Gadreel smile, or be relaxed, or with the simple contentment the angel wore after watching the night sky through the bunker telescope.

“It feels of you.” Sam said with a hushed wondrous tone.

“Already,” Gadreel hummed. “A Watcher would gift one to their chosen human. The quartz atoms could be set to transmit, to vibrate, with the frequency of the angel’s grace. It could comfort the human in times of solitude, and could alert the Watcher if their mate was in danger.”

Sam snorted. “So an ancient baby monitor cum pager cum Bat-signal?”

“I do not know why you would wish to signal a bat, but yes that it an appropriate approximation.” Gadreel’s hand covered Sam’s, enclosing the stone between them. “I would give it to you.”

“You’re not going anywhere.” Sam insisted before he could hear of being parted. 

The rock warmed to body temperature, and hints of light seeped from between their fingers.

“It is responding to us both.” Gadreel said in awe. His wide beaming smile lit up his eyes in the gloomy crypt.

Before Sam could have any sort of mini-freak-out about his/Lucifer’s grace mingling with Gadreel’s in this sort of eternal love rock, the angel pressed their lips together, and Sam responded. He closed his fist over the stone, and used both arms to wrap around Gadreel’s shoulders, deepening their embrace.

“This is a good day.” Sam whispered when they parted for air. They had their prize and a freaky little Grace Stone to mark their partnership. Sam would take it as a win and process or melt down later. For the moment he could admit, “I like this,” encompassing both the strange love stone and having each other to hold.

The sound of a throat being cleared loudly behind them put Sam on immediate high alert. He pulled his blade from his thigh holster, simultaneous to Gadreel dropping an angel blade from his sleeve. They swiveled to face Crowley.

“Well if it isn’t Moose and Not Moose cavorting in a dingy lair? Anyone would think you guys were up to something?” The demon rocked back on his heels, “Time’s up. My thief alert pinged. So hand bloody over whatever you’ve got shoved down those giant pants of yours. Now!”

 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++SPNSPNSPN++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


	10. Face Off

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is very short, but I won't have much time this week, meaning if I don't post now it could be closer to two weeks before I would be able to post a normal length chapter. Therefore this is me putting what I have out there for your reading pleasure ;-)

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++SPNSPNSPN++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 _“You burn with the brightest flame.”_ Hall of Fame, The Script feat Will.I.Am

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++SPNSPNSPN++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Sam’s eyes zeroed in on the smirk playing across Crowley’s smarmy face. He would have given his right arm to be able to wipe that smug grin off the demon’s mug permanently, but instead he was giving himself a mental kicking that he hadn’t paused to sketch a devil’s trap on the ceiling or under the table. His urgency to find the ancient document that might help Dean had led him to bypass his normal methodical approach to hunting. He’d skipped daubing an emergency angel banishing sigil on the wall too, but at least he had his subconscious desire to keep Gadreel by his side to blame for that oversight.

The angel in question made a slight move forward, angel blade at the ready.

“Hold up.” Crowley raised a palm. “No need to get our frilly knickers in a twist. Just hand over whatever it is you’ve taken and we can all be on our merry way.”

“The Hell we will, Crowley.” Sam spat, lodging his venom in words rather than attempting to lodge a blade in Crowley’s chest, as he deliberately recalled that the first blade was in the King of Hell’s keeping and the old jawbone might yet be vital in removing the Mark from his brother’s arm.

Crowley body scanned Sam and Gadreel from their toes to the tops of their heads. “Excuse me, but did I or did I not, at great personal risk, kick that giant prick outta your noggin? Hey, Moose? And this is how you thank me? Coming to steal Hell’s property?”

Sam donned his best fuck-you-face. He could sense Gadreel bristle beside him. 

Secreted in Sam’s left hand, fingers curled round, the Grace Stone warmed in pulses of Gadreel’s ire and desire to protect.

“Lucifer is an archangel. Does that not make all this angelic property?” Gadreel pointed out, giving the room a sweeping glance.

“Take it to a tribunal,” Crowley snapped back, “Or I’ll call in the real life versions of those Hell Hound statues. Juliet gets hungry, y’know.”

“You’re not going to do that, Crowley.” Sam said in his best persuade-them-by-being-full-of-conviction voice.

A tell tale side eye told Sam he was right, for now anyway. Crowley was too curious to jump straight to the endgame.

“So, fill me in, what did you come for? And don’t tell me this is your idea of a good Saturday date-night? Rooting around in the dark in Lucy’s leftovers? Didn’t know you were so kinky, Moose?” 

“Shuddup,” Sam gritted his teeth.

Without warning Crowley flicked his wrist. Sam’s chest tightened. He opened his lips to warn or tell his angel, but he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t get oxygen into his lungs. He wheezed desperately, everything whiting out.

“Stop.” Gadreel commanded.

“No-one’s gotta get hurt here,” Crowley’s reasonable voice was heavy with threat, “just hand over the goods and we’ll all be on our way.”

A deep blessed inhalation of air filled Sam’s lungs. He luxuriated in another couple of beautiful breaths. Closing his eyes for only a moment he became aware that rather than dropping his prize, he had the Grace Stone in a death grip, and it was fired up, enraged with Gadreel’s righteous anger. Their connection made Sam’s lips tilt up.

“Something funny, Moose? Because I’m not laughin’. We can try my experiment in lung implosion again if you’d like?”

“No. You will not.” Gadreel’s voice boomed. 

The Stone glowed enough that Crowley noticed Sam’s rose-pink-light-bulb-for-a-hand, but he didn’t have time to comment, because Gadreel straightened his spine and extended his wings in a show of power. 

Sam bit his lip as Gadreel’s eyes glowed intense ice-blue and huge ragged shadows unfurled to fill the crypt’s walls from floor to ceiling. It was awe-inspiring. Shining righteous grace lit up the crypt's dark corners. 

Sam chest tightened again but this time it was due to understanding that this display was in his honor and to shelter him from harm. He was a big boy, capable holding his own with Crowley, who he suspected wouldn’t follow through with his murder by hell hound threat. But it was still a smidgeon flattering that Gadreel would do that for him. 

Crowley took a pace back. He raised his open palms. “Yes, right, point taken. Moose, get your attack dog to stand down, would you?”

Crackling sparks of invisible grace tingled as the hunter bumped gently against Gadreel’s shoulder. A feeling of falling soft cotton sheets enveloped his back and shoulders as silently the angel drew in his wings to resting, but not yet tucked away in the ether.

With a look of boredom, Crowley shook his head. A snide mumbled comment about douchey angel grace stones and knowing Sam was a girl. A snap of his fingers, and the King of Hell was gone.

Sam let out a whistling long breath, which transmuted into a soft chuckle.

Gadreel still glared at the spot from which the demon had vanished. Looking offended, he rolled his shoulders to hide his wings.

The affronted cast to his angel’s features combined with the high of living another day made Sam’s chuckle roll into being doubled over with laughter, holding the stone against his stomach, knees bent, blade tip trailing the floor.

“Sam?” 

At the concerned tone, he looked up.

“I’m good. Better than good.” Sam wheezed, getting his mirth under control.

Gadreel tucked his hand into the crook of the hunter’s elbow, assisting him to rise.

“He thought we came for the stone,” Sam explained. “That we broke in for the stone.”

“Oh.” Slow comprehension of the complete picture dawned on Gadreel and his lips twitched. Then wide and beautiful, with his eyes almost closed, a smile lit up his face.

Sam’s cheeks almost cracked as his beam widened. He affirmed, “We’re taking this as a win.”

Slinging an arm over Gadreel’s shoulders, Sam pulled him in for a head and shoulder bump. 

“I concur,” the angel said with gladness, “Come along, Sam, let’s go home.”

“Home,” Sam nodded, a new gooey feeling settling at his core, at the thought that the bunker was his and Gadreel’s home, along with a flitter of dragonfly wings that once they translated the Fabula Cain, there might be something to help Dean.

The Camry hit the road in spots as Sam pressed pedal to the metal to try to get to the Bunker in the fastest possible time and to beat Dean and Castiel home.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++SPNSPNSPN+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


	11. Bright Spark

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++SPNSPNSPN++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 _"Is it getting better, or do you feel the same… We get to carry each other, carry each other.”_ U2, One

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++SPNSPNSPN++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Dawn painted Kansas skies in gold vermillion. Venus as Morningstar compelled Gadreel’s attention, stalling the angel at the steps to the bunker door. Not for the first time, Sam wondered privately if his lover’s fascination with the vast night sky was a consequence of his eternity of imprisonment. If he wasn’t vibrating with urgency to get inside and get their prized text translated, he would have indulged a moment to appreciate the skies above. With reluctance he tugged Gadreel’s arm, keeping his hand fisted in Gadreel’s jacket as they entered, pushing him against the iron railing, and capturing his surprise parted lips in a firm claiming kiss designed to chase away any bitter memories.

Pulling back, sucking air, Sam prepared to formulate clear thoughts about being filled with thankfulness for freedom and being side by side, without descending into pure sap, however he was stalled by a shout from the war room table below.

“Geez, Sammy, keep it in the bedroom!”

“Dean!” Sam grinned. Positivity sped his descent of the iron staircase. They had looted the document from under Crowley’s nose, and although he didn’t yet know if it would yield a lead on the Mark, he was buoyed by knowing at least he had a morsel of good news to impart.

His brother, however, did not accompany his teasing shout with a smile. Instead he looked pinched, under stress, strained or maybe restraining anger. Castiel’s chair was pulled close, inside Dean’s personal space. As Sam watched, Castiel’s hand pressed on Dean’s shoulder as if he was trying to keep the hunter in his seat. Sam halted his bouncing approach with a quizzical brow furl.

“What happened?” Sam stalled. “I thought the job was cut and dried.”

“Gotta call.” Dean jerked his head, almost accusingly, towards his cell which sat on the table.

“Yeah?” Sam asked warily, unsure where Dean was going with this, why Castiel’s hold continued, or why Dean permitted it.

Dean scrubbed a hand over his face and exchanged a look of understanding with Castiel, who finally removed his touch but then shifted his chair nearer. 

“The hunt was…”

“…Enlightening.” Castiel finished somberly.

“Yeah, not the word I’da picked, but sure. It was, y’know, vengeful spirit, dumb kids dying gory…” Dean sighed, “Yadda yadda, but the dude’s widow… Cas and me, we talked to her… and she had to go through that, y’know, seeing the guy she loved, loves, turning into a monster…”

Sam almost interrupted to mention previous times they’d encountered family of a vengeful spirit. His mind conjured up how they eventually had to destroy Bobby’s hip flask for the same reason. From his brother’s tone he gathered that this time was different. Had something happened between Dean and Cas?

Dean continued, “All those regrets and I don’t know how long before I… so I told Cas, and now I’m telling you, that I can’t live with false hopes. I’m not giving up but I’m not chasing any more wild geese, Sam.”

“I respect Dean’s wishes,” Castiel added.

Sam glared at them both. “You’re giving up.” 

“I said I wasn’t giving up. Geez, Sammy. I just think we should concentrate on hunting, saving people, rather than running down leads that result in zilch.” Dean sighed, “I wanted to have this talk with you when we got back, y’know all reasonable and adult-like. So, we stopped to pick up a six pack of that organic hand-brew with hops harvested by singing virgins that you like, for a post-hunt chill out and air clearing.”

“It’s craft beer,” Sam mumbled under his breath.

“But we get back, and there’s no sign of you or him. No note. Nadda.” Dean eye-flicked to Gadreel, who had come to stand shoulder to shoulder with Sam. “Then I get a call… from Crowley.”

Sam huffed, annoyed that Crowley might have stolen their thunder a bit, leaking the news that he and Gadreel had been in Lucifer’s crypt. “Sneaky Asshole.”

“You annoyed that he told on you? Or that I know you’ve been keeping secrets?” Dean snapped. “Digging where you have no business. Poking into the Mark behind my back?”

“I’m not going behind your back.” Sam protested, almost getting whiplash from Dean’s mood swings.

“No? What do you call it?” Dean hissed.

The Grace Stone vibrated in Sam’s jeans pocket as Gadreel bristled and spoke up. “We found and acted upon information that could assist the quest to divest you of Cain’s Mark.”

Dean harrumphed in disbelief. “Crowley said you two practiced some breaking, entering, and taking from one of his lockups and were looking for The First Blade.”

Sam’s jaw literally dropped. 

“Stop trying to find the Blade,” Dean’s eyes blazed, “There’s a freaking good reason why Crowley’s got it hidden from me. I don’t care if you’ve found some sorta Men of Letters hoodoo spell to destroy it. It’s too risky… motherfucking dangerous to bring it here… Doesn’t your boyfriend remember the last time he, me and it were here?”

“Dean!” Sam beseeched, riled that Dean would mention so flippantly how he slashed Gadreel and had to be restrained from killing him, “Why would I look for the Blade? I don’t want that thing anywhere near you!”

“I dunno, Sam. But I know you’ve been sneaking around looking for a Hail Mary pass on the Mark. I can’t do this anymore, do you hear me?” Dean expelled a sigh, shoulders sagging as the rage left him, “Crowley said Cain is on the move. He thought we wanted the full set of Blade and Mark and that I was clued into your plans.”

“Listen,” Sam plunked down opposite his brother, opening his palms with elbows planted on Greenland and Baffin Island. “Forget about Cain for a minute.”

Dean rolled his eyes.

“Show him, Gad,” Sam said as he pulled out the next chair for the angel.

Gadreel extracted the scroll, unrolled it, and flattened it down over the map of the mid Atlantic.

“A piece of dirty, what is that, human skin?” Dean scoffed with a disgusted nose wrinkle.

“Calf.” Gadreel supplied the origin of the writing template.

Castiel reached forward, pulling the Fabula Cain towards him, reading it upside down with a perplexed head tilt.

“Is this genuine, Brother?”

“I believe so.”

“The Phoenician is ancient and I believe small transcription errors have occurred,” Castiel tapped a symbol, “Here it says the mouth of beastly goats rather than the jawbone of an ass.”

Both angels spurted out loud laughs. Gadreel threw his head back and said something in Enochian which had Castiel displaying all his pearly whites in amusement. Sam watched in fascination as tears of laughter trickled from Gadreel’s eyes.

“Don’t tell me. Goat humor is funnier in Enochian.” Dean huffed affectionately, any lingering tension dissipating with the celestial humor.

“It is.” Castiel responded seriously, “Goats are very funny animals.”

“Father did enjoy…” Suddenly Gadreel stopped. He gulped and straightened in his chair. Castiel gave him a nod of understanding, while Sam remembered seeing a reference when he was searching for Gadreel about how he had been a favorite of God before the Garden, one of the select few aside from the archangels to be in His presence.

“Right.” Sam intervened, “Get this. We’ve got an account, a real early account of the Mark.”

“And?” Dean prompted.

“It’s translatable. Gad can translate it.”

“I can assist.” Castiel volunteered. “Two minds in tandem will result in greater veracity. We can consult on unclear or multiple meanings.”

“Alright.” Dean conceded, standing up and heading for the kitchen. “Every other road has been a dead end, but seeing as you’ve already brought this one home, I’ll supply fuel and hydration.”

“Caffeine.” Sam yelled as a request. Having driven through the night, he knew it was a matter of time before his hopeful adrenaline would run low and he would be more likely to head plant and snore at the table than to be able to offer any research assistance.

Sam wished Dean could have more hope, have faith that Sam would find a solution, but he understood that dashed hopes, that constantly hitting brick walls wore Dean down. He had a good feeling about this one. Why would demons have offered it as tribute to Lucifer if it wasn’t of some significance? He played with the Grace Stone while he accompanied Gadreel and Castiel to the library, keeping it in his palm so he had to use one hand to produce pencils and paper for the angel translating duo. He doubted it was necessary, but he also pulled down a Phoenician dialect primer from the library shelves. By the time Dean reappeared with breakfast offerings of bacon rolls and coffee, flowery introductory sentences had already been rendered into modern English. Placing the Grace Stone by his mug, Sam craned his neck to read commonly known information about rivalry between Cain and Abel.

When he looked up, Sam saw Castiel’s eyes riveted on the pale smooth pink-veined stone.

“Is that what I think it is?” Castiel asked with parted lips.

“Yes, Brother.” Gadreel preened. “We discovered it in the crypt and Sam has accepted it from me.”

“My felicitations.” Castiel nodded towards Sam.

“Whoa!” Dean raised his hand. “What the frigging… I turn my back for like two minutes, and you’ve got what, some angelic promise ring, huh Sam?”

Sam stifled a laugh. “I guess,” he shrugged, “It’s a Grace Stone.”

Castiel took up the explanation. “When angels walked the Earth, they gave them to their chosen humans. It connected them, allowing Watchers to link with their mates.”

“Connected?” Dean asked warily.

Gadreel answered, “Sam and I already share a connection, as he has been my vessel. And he has shared Grace with me. The Stone merely amplifies our link.”

Dean squirmed a touch at Gadreel’s reminder. He looked even more uncomfortable when Castiel added his two cents.

“As it would be for us, Dean. A stone would simply manifest our bond.”

Sam snorted, expecting protests from his brother, but even though Dean reeled a little, his lips quirked as he gave Castiel a shoulder punch.

“We don’t need no pinky girly rock, hey Cas?”

“No, Dean, we don’t.” The angel affirmed, although Sam could did see some sneaky covetous glances towards the Grace Stone over the morning as the translation progressed. Each time Sam caught Cas’s eye drifting towards it, he wondered if maybe more than a light bulb moment had happened on the last hunt. If maybe Dean and Cas had finally resolved some of their serious case of unresolved sexual tension. He made a note to corner either the bed headed angel or his obtuse brother and find out if his suspicions were true.

By lunchtime, Dean had three pies in the oven and pressed their Fed suits to within an inch of their lives, all in an effort to avoid the library. Sam had learned the basics of Phoenician and sharpened every pencil to lethal sharpness while stealing looks over Gadreel’s shoulder. 

“I think it’s time to call Dean in,” Castiel announced, rolling his shoulders in a very human motion.

The older Winchester must have been hovering out of sight because with alacrity he was planting his butt on the chair next to Castiel, who scooped up their work, holding the A4 pad next to his chest.

“Awh Cas.” Dean ribbed.

“No, Dean. If you disappear for the duration, then you must wait to hear the results.”

Dean sucked air, “And is there? Results?”

Gadreel nodded. 

“A cure?” Dean licked his lower lip.

“Not a cure,” Gadreel confessed carefully, “But significant information.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Dean glared around.

“Do you think it would work?” Sam blurted, his mind racing ahead based on the gleanings he had peeped at.

“What would work?” Gadreel turned towards him. “You cannot be thinking of placing yourself…”

“Hold up.” Dean interjected, “Anyone liked to give me the 411 here?”

“The text is an account of the murder of Abel and the cursing of Cain.” Castiel expounded. “It bears much similarity to Genesis, apocrypha, and what we had previously learned.”

“But there are differences, yeah?” Sam checked, leaning forward slightly in anticipation.

“This word,” Gadreel tapped mid-document.

“The one that got you and Cas raising your voices in Enochian.” Sam supplied for Dean’s benefit.

“It means that Lucifer gave Cain the Mark.” Castiel said.

“But,” Gadreel added rapidly, “The placement of the symbol suggests ‘to give’ as in ‘to pass’ or ‘to transfer’.”

“Huh?” Dean mimicked Sam’s forward posture over the table. “Is this a case of Lost in Translation, dudes?”

“No,” Cas stated, “Because once Gadreel and I moved on to the next section, we found this… _Cain was cursed to wander without hope of eternal rest, and Lucifer bore the Mark no more._ ”

“You mean Luci was the original bearer of the tat?” Dean flicked his arm at them.

“Not in a corporeal way.” Gadreel considered. “It would have marked his wavelength, hidden in his vastness. I do not know how he came by it, because I am sure when we were young he bore no such blemish, and yet this phrasing here suggests that Lucifer was capable of bearing the Mark without losing control.”

“He is an archangel.” Castiel commented.

“Y’mean he’s freaking Satan.” Dean jumped in. “Cain might be the Father of Murder but the devil wanted to bring the apocalypse, kill everyone, and destroy the world.”

“Ah,” Sam cleared his throat. “No, he didn’t actually.”

Dean did his own version of a bitch-face at his brother.

“Lucifer didn’t want to fight Michael.” Sam muttered. 

Gadreel broke the strange moment of silence that settled upon that remark. “Lucifer’s motivations matter not. The important knowledge is that the mark can be transferred.”

“Well duh,” Dean scoffed, “We know that. Cain gave it to me.”

“No, Dean,” Sam explained. “We understood Cain was able to give it to you, but that could have been a one off, or because he was Cain, or because you’re the Michael Sword, or because Pluto was aligned with Mercury for all we knew…. Now we realize that it’s not something Lucifer created specially for Cain. He gave it to Cain. Cain gave it to you. It is transferable.”

“That’s great and all, Sam, but what do we do with that? I’m not gonna inflict this on some schmuck we meet on the street.”

Sam caught his brother’s eye. “You can give it to me.”

“What?” Dean yelped. “No freaking way in Hell, Sammy. I am not doing that to you. I am not cursing my own brother.”

Sam laughed drily. “I’m cursed already. I was cursed before I was born. I’ve lived with being cursed every breath I’ve taken, and it never stopped me. There’s no-one better to give it to. And there’s a chance that I can use Lucifer’s Grace to bear it without cost, maybe even neutralize it.”

“Shit, Sam, I’m not motherfucking doing that to anyone, and especially not to you, based on a freaking _chance_. What if you’re wrong?”

Sam clenched his jaw. “It’s the best option. And if I am wrong, then we’re back to square one. One of us has the Mark of Cain and we continue to search for a cure.”

“No way in hell.” Dean returned. “Not doing it Sam. Not giving you this. I won’t. And that’s final.”

The elder Winchester almost knocked his chair to floor as he made a tactical and stomping retreat from the room. With a brief meaningful look at Gadreel, Castiel leaped to follow.

“I suppose you think I’ve lost the plot too? Want to talk me down from my crazy plan?” Sam spun to challenge his partner.

Gadreel simply shook his head, lifted the Grace Stone and placed it on the back of Sam’s hand, covering it with his own. 

“I am not pleased with this plan. I do not think you have considered all angles, and what possible harm could come to you. However, you spoke with love for your brother. Give Castiel time to calm him. Perhaps you should try to get some rest. Then we can discuss all ramifications of our new knowledge and all possible routes from here.”

Sam rubbed a knuckle into the corner of his weary eyes. He nodded his head with bitten lips, recognizing the soundness of Gadreel’s words. He knew it was a leap of logic to presume he’d have the juice and ability to deal with bearing the Mark. He wouldn’t rush headlong into taking the it but if he could deal with the Mark using his vestige of Lucifer’s Grace then he was determined that he would convince his stubborn brother that his idea was best.

“I hear you. I’ll sleep on it.” Sam promised, hoping some shuteye would reboot his melon, giving him the brainpower to research and refine his plan to flawless. He sighed as weariness hit him, and asked “Come with me?”

Gadreel nodded, rising to offer Sam his hand and his company.

 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++SPNSPNSPN++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


	12. Entente

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++SPNSPNSPN++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 _“There must be some way out of here, said the joker to the thief.”_ All Along The Watchtower – Bob Dylan

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++SPNSPNSPN+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Sam lay in wait.

Scenarios, postulations, imaginings and predictions of ways he could persuade Dean over to his point of view ran through his mind like a slideshow. He tried to put them aside. The purpose of this morning was to mend any rift between them after the previous day’s blow up over Sam’s conviction that by passing the Mark they could be rid of the infernal scar and all its effects.

He had brewed fresh dark roast coffee, broken the seal on a new bottle of grade one maple syrup, and was ready to add crispy bacon to his planned short stacks. That was if Dean ever frigging appeared to participate in Sam’s civilised ‘Sorry I sprung my solution on you’ breakfast.

His own first cup of Joe consumed, and the bacon put back in the refrigerator, the younger Winchester paced a groove in the kitchen floor. He had sent Gadreel off on his lonesome for their normally shared morning run. Strictly speaking angels didn’t require exercise. Sam knew that part of Gadreel’s enthusiasm for their route through the bunker surrounds was to escape from being cooped up inside, an overhang from eternity in a heavenly jail cell. Yet, when Gadreel had nodded in agreement and left with a parting kiss, Sam also understood and appreciated that his partner was giving him the space he desired without having to ask for it. 

Strictly speaking Gadreel didn’t need to sleep either, Sam pondered as he retook a seat and drummed his fingers on the table, but the previous night the angel had lain with him, a solid presence at his back, a supportive hand on his hip, never vanishing to indulge in his love of the bunker telescope. Sam stirred several times, always finding his angel present, and he was grateful that Gadreel instinctively understood when to stay and when to vamoose.

Noise of movement put the hunter on alert. He tensed. Odds were that Dean considered he had said the final word on Sam’s idea of taking the Mark. He expected to be faced with stony stubbornness if he dared to approach the topic. He held tight to a slither of hope that plied with strong coffee and sticky pancakes a full-belied Dean might at least be receptive to hearing his younger brother out before shutting him down. Then there was a chance that Sam’s words would percolate in Dean’s melon, stewing and marinating until either Dean would come round or use his legendary lateral thinking in tight spots to come up with a new improved strategy.

Sam did not expect to hear the main door being slammed shut. For a moment he thought Gadreel had returned early, but the clatter belied that notion. Next thing Castiel, with his hair sticking up at impossible angles and suit jacket wrinkled, made his way into the kitchen.

“Where’s Dean?” came out of Sam’s mouth in lieu of a morning greeting.

“He had gone to procure breakfast items.” Castiel replied before noticing Sam’s feast in the making. “I believe he wishes to placate you with an organic fruit based concoction from the whole foods store”

Sam nodded, a smile worming its way onto his face. He would take great minds thinking alike as a positive sign. Also while he had Castiel on his own he could take the opportunity to ask some pertinent questions.

“So... Cas?”

“Yes, Sam?”

“You and Dean?” Sam spread his palms, raised his brows with a cheeky wiggle, and gave a knowing nod, in the hopes that the angel would catch on.

Castiel did his trademark avian head tilt and screwed up his forehead.

Sam suspected he was being deliberately oblivious. No way was he giving up. He coughed, “Did anything happen... I mean... you and Dean... have you guys... y’know?”

“Dean has informed me what you prefer not to hear details of his intimate relations.” Cas deadpanned.

Sam almost balked at the implied imagery before making a rapid recovery to clap Castiel hard on the upper arm. “Good on you, Cas. Finally made the move, Man.”

Castiel corrected him. “In fact, Dean initiated with arm slinging in celebration of a successful hunt, to a pleasurable form of hugging at the deeper issues brought to the surface, which back in our motel room developed into...”

“Alright, Cas, TMI. I get it.” Sam blurted.

Castiel was unfazed at the protest but spared Sam’s blushes by turning course, “I believe it is your relationship with Gadreel which enabled Dean to act.”

“You what now? Me and Gad?” Sam’s lips remained parted as he leaned forward in his seat.

“Yes. As you ‘went first’ in an intimate connection with a ‘celestial’” Castiel used air quotes twice, “without apocalyptic side effects, and this time your non-human lover has proved benevolent...”

“Yeah, I get it.” Sam butted in to prevent Cas travelling down Ruby memory lane and on to demon blood and Gadreel deigning to bond with an abomination.

After pausing to formulate his thoughts Sam ventured, “Cas? You know Dean needs you. I mean he’s always needed you in a way, but now, if he’s let you in, really let you in... and with how he’s been battling the Mark, he...” Sam huffed, meeting Cas’s piercing attentive stare, “I don’t think is a winning idea for you to scarper upstairs or outta his life. I mean if you’ve gotta answer a 911 from heaven or Hannah, you’ve got to come back, Man, as soon as...”

Castiel reached out to place his hand on Sam’s shoulder. “I understand. I am in agreement. Dean is my priority.”

“Good.” Sam expelled a mini-sigh of relief, swallowing down his worries.

“But, you my friend, are also my concern. I urge you to reconsider your hasty and rather insouciant plan.”

Sam stiffened defensively.

“Bearing the Mark of Cain is not a decision to be made lightly or carelessly, as Dean now realizes. I know you believe that the remains of Lucifer’s grace would assist you to handle, maybe even defeat, the Mark.”

“Damn-right, I do.” Sam bristled, anticipating the approaching counter argument.

“You may be correct. You may not. What if archangelic grace amplifies or accelerates the effects? What if it consumes you?”

Sam gulped, recalling Gadreel’s gentle words to stay his fire and not run headlong into taking the Mark. Clinging to the need to deny Cas’s words, Sam shook his head so violently that his hair fell into his eyes.

“What if it turns you into a worse type of monster than Cain? A new breed of Knight?”

Under his breath, Sam’s desire to refute these prospects morphed into muttered nightmares of being a super powered demon, a new improved Boy King.... a force of ultimate destruction. His mind caught in a flashback of tectonic plates buckling in ripples from his body under Lucifer’s power.

“You see,” Castiel intoned, wrapping his fingers round Sam’s wrist to squeeze his support.

After a few steadying moments, during which Sam was sure his visceral nightmare was pushed away by a touch of Cas’s grace, he looked up at his friend, whispering “I would take the chance to save Dean.”

“But he would never allow it. You would sacrifice yourself and your humanity to rescue your brother, mirroring Dean, who would carry that Mark to infinity rather than risk harm to you.”

Dewey-eyed Sam gulped. “What do we do, Cas? If this is a no-go, how to we help him? How do we rid him of it? What do we do now?”

“Cas is right.” Dean said from the entryway. 

Sam’s head shot up, blinking back errant tears, he bit his lip.

“No way in Hell am I cursing you with this,” he extended his denim clad smoothie holding arm. “What do we do? We fight on. We keep searching. We take out as many sonsabitches as we can along the way. You hear me, Sammy?”

“Yeah, Dean, I hear ya. But I think we shouldn’t throw this idea in the garbage.”

Dean braced to protest but Sam stood and stepped over to take his organic fruit packed breakfast. “If we can find proof that my theory would work, and would work without risk of planet wide destruction or imminent death...”

“Or injury to you.” Dean interjected.

“And without me turning darkside,” Sam added. “Then we revisit it. Deal?”

Dean nodded. “Deal.”

“Until then we keep researching on all fronts, We stick together. All of us. You, me. You and Cas. Me and Gad.” Sam couldn’t stop his lips from twitching.

Dean eyed them both suspiciously. “You been spilling the beans, Cas?”

“I have not been spilling any beans.” Castiel smiled. “I have talked with Sam about the ascension of our bond.”

“Ascension?” Dean snorted, “Is that what we are calling it now?”

“Yes, Dean. I believe you told me you had an out of body experience.”

“Na-Na-Na-Na-Na,” Sam plunked his smoothie down to free his hands so he could plug his ear holes. He kept his eyes open though, so he witnessed Dean pressing a kiss to the nest of Castiel’s hair. 

“Is that pancakes?” Dean sparkled, stretching to look in the now cooled skillet.

“Syrupy pancakes with bacon,” Sam promised, “You’d better get in quick before Gad gets back and scoffs the lot.”

Dean dived for the maple syrup, cradling it close with an impish smile as Castiel rolled his eyes and Sam made quick work of crisping up the bacon strips. Chuckling as he alternatively flipped protein and pancake, Sam took long drinks of his smoothie.

“I’m gonna eat every one before he gets back.” Dean insisted.

“I believe that would induce stomach ache.” Castiel said with concern.

“Hah!” Sam half turned, waving his spatula, “Then you can give him belly rubs.”

“Would you like belly rubs?” Castiel innocently asked an open-mouthed Dean.

“Ahem,” Dean gifted them with a glare for their joshing. “We’ll save that for the bedroom, hey Cas?”

Sam smirked in self-satisfaction before gleefully sliding pancakes to build Dean’s stack. He couldn’t be bitter or overly disappointed at having his idea shelved. When he had initially thought that Dean passing the Mark over might end all their troubles, he had gripped tight to that hope, but he was nothing if not logical and adaptable. He was grateful to Castiel for being blunt and straight enough to point out the serious flaws in his unwillingness to view the other side of the coin. So this way had hit a brick wall, maybe fatally or maybe retaining a future chance that with refinement and greater knowledge it might leap that wall. He could see Castiel’s terrifying possible future and the validity of both his and Gadreel’s urge for caution. He would continue on his quest to free his brother from the Mark without hesitation. His drive to find a cure was undimmed, and he took balm from Dean’s willingness to continue research into all angles.

During the day, Sam wallowed in seeing his brother openly bless Castiel with affectionate touches. He saw Castiel take Dean’s hand at the library table. He watched Dean wrap his limbs around Cas on the sofa while trying not to be obvious about his Liam Neeson man-crush as they settled to watch all three Taken movies on Sam’s laptop. Once the first one was over, the movies couldn’t hold his attention. 

When he turned his head, he saw that Gadreel’s focus was also not on the laptop. He leaned in to share a quick kiss but the angel had other intentions. Sam found long fingers snaking through his hair, twining through his strands and tugging possessively from the roots. Lifting his own palm to cradle the side of Gadreel’s cheek, Sam deepened the kiss, exploring and tasting, tipping teeth and lengthening their caress.

“Just ‘cause me and Cas mighta taken the final step doesn’t mean I wanna see you and him tongue tangling, Sam!”

Breaking apart just enough to retort, Sam snapped with fraternal fondness, “Shuddup, Dean.”

Delightfully ignoring his elder brother and luxuriating in eliciting delicious moans from Gadreel’s lips, Sam stayed in the moment. After all it was a pretty damn good one.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++SPNSPNSPN+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, I edited ‘rash’ to the wonderful ‘insouciant’. (I love me some Endverse!Cas).
> 
> Sorry this one was a bit Gadreel-lite. Epilogue to follow will be Sam/Gadreel.


	13. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it, folks. Thank you to everyone who has stuck with me (and those who have begun reading more recently) for staying with this story as I fought through some serious writer’s block episodes. I can only apologize again for the length of time this one has taken. Hope you will all like the final instalment.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++SPNSPNSPN+++++++++++++++++++++

“ _All of your demons will wither away. Ecstasy comes and they cannot stay. You’ll understand when you come my way, ‘Cos all of my demons have withered away._ ”  
Fatboy Slim feat. Macy Gray, Demons

+++++++++++++++++++++SPNSPNSPN++++++++++++++++++++

 

The cemetery was too open, too exposed. It made Sam antsy. A wind had come up in the last hour making him pull his green canvas jacket tight with folded arms. He hopped from one foot to the other, ticking off the seconds and monitoring the gloaming dawn as grey and pink light hinted in the eastern sky.

Eldritch Barnaby’s sloping 19th Century grave marker was planted too close to the edge of the original cemetery area to give any comfort of privacy. There’d been a late night jogger in spitting distance just as Dean was due to stab the plot with the first strike of his spade. That led to a strategic retreat to the Impala and Dean grumbling under his breath about exercise freaks. 

The job in Piermont, New York, had been billed as a plain and simple haunting, hardly one that needed a team of four. Under determined Sam-probing Dean had awkwardly (with back of neck rubbing) admitted that he wanted to introduce Castiel to Sonny, now that they were officially a “thing”. There was a secondary reason for splitting up. Dean and Cas were going to chase down leads on Cain’s movements, but not until they’d spent a couple of nights under Dean’s old mentor’s roof.

Although Castiel had offered Sam and Gadreel his pimpmobile, the younger Winchester and elder angel traveled in Dean’s Baby until a couple of hours out from Piermont when Sam hotwired a 2002 Silverado, saving it from its neglected corner of a used car lot. 

Dean and Castiel currently were stationed at a construction site conjunct to the abandoned Erie Railroad, making 100% sure that their vengeful pre-dusk and pre-dawn apparition would no longer be making scheduled appearances. The brightening sky was making it look like they had salted and burned the right bones. It had been a straightforward case. Archived newssheets told of the long ago tragic death of a local laborer working on the tracks, in proximity to the spot where a new development was clearing shrubbery and digging foundation trenches. 

The only break from rote hunting 101 during the job had happened during their interview with the tearful parents of a mischievous twelve year old who’d incurred Barnaby’s wrath when trespassing with friends as a dare on the rumored haunted site. Gadreel had leaned silently over to the wheelchair and placed two fingers on boy’s forehead healing him of all wounds. Castiel had done the ‘clean up’ job, persuading the Mecums that proclaiming their miracle and exposing their family to the media would be a bad idea. Sam had twitched a grin afterwards as Castiel gave Gadreel a lecture on subtlety and sneaky healing procedures.

Sam’s phone pinged. No sign of ghostly funky railroad workers downtown. Dean and Cas were hitting the road for Hurleyville. Sam shot back a quick acknowledgment, making sure to josh his brother by including his D-Dog alias.

Pocketing his cell, a smile stretched Sam’s lips, dimpling his cheeks. He looked to the East, to Gadreel standing erect, head tilted up to gaze at the final stars dotting the morning sky. Sam couldn’t see his face, but he could imagine the contentment in his partner’s eyes. This cemetery was a blessing, low on light pollution, and sitting on a hill above Piermont. 

Without a word, he joined his angel, standing side by side, close enough for jacket sleeves to brush and his right hand to link the fingers of Gadreel’s left. 

They stood like that, simply and silently, contemplating the sky. It was surprisingly peaceful. Sam could glimpse a little of Gadreel’s pleasure, and it made him quietly confident that he had chosen his own surprise detour well.

“There, Sam, is Saturn,” Gadreel pointed at a star that had seemed brighter before pinks and burnt golds had appeared. “Behind us, we cannot see due to the contours of the land, is Jupiter.”

“Cronos and Zeus,” Sam whispered their Greek names, suppressing memories of struggling to get Dean back from the 1940s and then trying to help Prometheus while feeling the effects of the Trials.

“You shivered. Are you cold?” Gadreel swapped his focus to Sam’s face, squeezing his hand.

“It’s frigging cold.” Sam agreed with a wry huff, “But I’m fine.”

“We can go.” Gadreel tugged him towards the exit gate.

“I would’ve stayed here, y’know, being astronomers.”

“That is good worthy occupation.” Gadreel’s tone headed for merriment. “Do you ever want to go out there, to the stars?”

Sam outright laughed. He bumped hips. “Are you asking me to go into space with you?”

“Maybe.” Gadreel replied casually, but Sam knew he was only teasing.

Sam did a quick recon to make sure they hadn’t left any incriminating evidence behind. Then they hit the road. Although Lebanon was their ultimate destination, Sam would turn north off the I-80 in Pennsylvania. While Dean took a few personal days to revisit his old friend, Sam and Gadreel would have their own personal time. The secret intention kept his inner amusement bubbling as they headed west.

“We’re gonna stop overnight.” Sam commented as he diverted off the highway. “I know a place bout an hour north of here.”

“Yes,” Gadreel agreed, “We do not have four to switch out driving duties. Taking your rest is prudent.”

Sam tactfully avoided pointing out that Dean had permitted only Sam to take short stints at the wheel on their road trip from the Bunker.

“I think you’ll like this place,” Sam ploughed on, “We stayed in a cabin nearby for a couple weeks the summer I was ten. Dad was hunting something, still dunno what. But I remember thinking the park was cool, and from my google research it’s even cooler now.”

“You have lived a long time, Sam.”

Sam’s brows rose in surprise at the comment from left field. He hadn’t lived the lifespan of a gnat compared to an angel. A thought occurred to him.

“Gad, you’re not allowed to include Hell.”

“I stand corrected. You are much younger than I.”

“Understatement”, Sam chuckled. “Hey, did you make a joke?”

Gadreel did not answer, instead commenting, “You are in a buoyant mood.”

“I guess so.”

Sam, who had been doing sneaky trip advisor, craigslist, and google research since Dean had mentioned Sonny’s, pulled the pick-up into the driveway of Marker House B&B. Although it was lunchtime the colonial style home had several guests’ vehicles parked in the wide gravel area in front of its columned porch.

“This is different to your usual choice of accommodation.” Gadreel commented dryly as both extracted their limbs from the Silverado and stretched their backs. 

Sam cocked his head towards the house. “Upgrade, Gad.”

The angel remained silent and let Sam deal with the cheery middle-aged couple who checked them in and followed them to their florally decorated Queen room with freshly baked choc chip cookies and a coffee pot of dark roast.

Double width windows overlooked the sloping garden and distant tree line. Sam dumped his duffel on the floor by their bed. He wanted a shower, feeling the residue of grave dirt on his skin, but first he dug out his salt and chalk. Salt borders and sigils under landscape paintings, Sam poured two generous cups of Java and joined Gadreel at the windows.

“We have a few hours.” Sam commented.

Gadreel raised a brow.

“Before my late night plans.”

“And what?” Gadreel took a slurp of his coffee, “May I ask are your current plans?”

“Shower.” Sam snapped back. 

Gadreel nodded.

“We should test the bed for suitability.” Sam let out a slight snigger.

“It looks large enough to accommodate us.” 

“But we should be certain.”

“Certain? Yes, we should.” Gadreel grinned. “You shower. I’ll finished these baked goods.”

“Ahem,” Sam chuckled. “You know I’m the human here. The one who needs sustenance.”

“Do you think Mrs. Kitsch will provide us with further refreshments?”

“Just wait until breakfast. They’re famous for it. The food here is a State Treasure according to their website.”

“In that case I shall guard these cookies with my very existence while you take care of your ablutions.”

With that promise, Sam took broke the world record for Winchester shower brevity, emerging to a sight that brought his mood and a certain body part to hit the heights. He reluctantly suspected that there possibly could have been some very disturbing wee hours angelic Pizza Man watching back at the bunker, but at that moment he didn’t care. Gadreel was spread out on smooth cream sheets, naked as the day his vessel had been born, cookie crumbs on his ribbed chest and one chocolatey treat on its plate resting on the dip of his stomach. 

Sam licked his lips.

“Saved you one, Sam, but you’re going to have to work to get it.”

Fluffy towel dropped to the floor, Sam dived for the bed, splaying sideways, only for angelic speed to whip the cookie out from under him and to safety on the bedside table. Gadreel underhandedly used his celestial strength to maneuver his partner into a more complementary position. Warm hands ran down Sam’s sides as lips met his. He opened up tasting sugar, coffee beans and cocoa beans. He pushed forward, straining to meet chest to chest, to dive into his lover’s mouth, and join them together. Fingers tangled in his towel-dried hair, tugging just the right amount. A moan built in his throat. Gadreel let a breathy gasp as they parted only enough to move in synchronicity. Sam licked his palm and made to take their glorious cocks in hand. With the hand not tangled in Moose-hair, Gadreel placed a restraining touch to Sam’s hip.

“I want you to enter me, Sam. I want us to do this.”

For a moment Sam stilled. He couldn’t bear to have to explain that he couldn’t reciprocate. That he couldn’t go there.

“I don’t want to hurt you.” Sam gulped, his erection flagging as he used all his mental strength to push down unwelcome recollections.

“You won’t.” Gadreel promised, his eyes communicating his sincerity. “I would never force you, Sam. I do not expect you to do anything you are uncomfortable with. I will not ask that of you. But wouldn’t you like to try? I will be more than happy no matter which way we copulate.”

“You’ve such a romantic turn of phrase.” Sam huffed in amusement. “How about we take up where we left off and see how we go?”

Out of the corner of his eye Sam noticed the lube beyond his promised cookie. 

“No condoms,” He muttered.

“I am an angel.” Gadreel pointed out.

With an affectionate nasal huff, Sam leaned cross Gadreel’s body to reach the bottle. Once he had coated his hand, it took some expert jerking just the way they liked, along with some deep pressed kisses to get Not-So-Little-Sam back on board. The velvet glide of Gadreel’s length against his own built arousal and shortened his breath. He wanted. He wanted his angel, wholly. He wanted to give Gadreel pleasure, to show his partner that he was all in. In the midst of rising ardor, he must have been able to communicate his muttered desires, because when his sliding touch perilously slowly lost contact with their heated straining dick, Gadreel smoothly turned turn and rose up on his knees, hands wrapping around the white metal railings of the bed head.

A tremble betrayed his wariness as Sam brought a lubed finger to his lover’s furled hole. He swallowed hard. Pushing as gently as he could. Once more his arousal lessened but pushing motions and very different tremors of desire through Gadreel’s muscles spurred him on. 

“More, Sam, I can take more… Please, Sam… so good.”

The words settled inside him. He took his time, first rubbing a hand along Gadreel’s lower back. He found purchase on his partner’s hip, then caressed his glowing skin, ran his hand down his thigh, and round to find precome leaking onto the pristine sheets below. When he used three fingers to stretch and ease his lover open, he became fascinated by how his digits were sucked into wonderful hidden heated skin.

When Gadreel called out his readiness, Sam was fully hard. He bit his lip only once as he lined up, holding Gadreel’s hip tight enough to leave marks. Pushing in, he was slowly wondrously swallowed whole. Balls deep, Sam got lost in the sensations of heat and perfect tightness, and trust and connection and…

“Move. You can move.”

With a gasp of grateful adoring concurrence, Sam pulled back and thrust forward finding a rhythm that had Gadreel moaning and lifting onto one hand to drive his own climax. Sam wouldn’t last long. He’d been on the edge for too long but he adjusted his angle to find Gadreel’s prostate and knew he’d been successful when his partner came hard and shuddering with a bellowing cry of “Sam!”

Clenched tight in the grip of his partner’s body, Sam followed with such power that he whited out for a second and saw spots floating in vision as his heartbeat levelled out. He eased out carefully, twisting to lie on his back beside Gadreel who turned to prop himself up on an elbow. A shit-faced grin shone from his angel’s face before he bent down to plant butterfly kisses along Sam’s jaw.

“I guess it was good for you.” Sam quipped, a relaxed smile spreading across his features.

“You are amazing.” Gadreel complimented.

“Y’weren’t so bad.” Sam grinned. “Come ‘ere.”

With lazy indulgent embraces, Sam could have drifted straight to sleep, but Gadreel took a minute to clean them up with a warm flannel from the bathroom.

Sam giggled contentedly, “I bet Mr. and Mrs. Kitsch didn’t know their comfy room was gonna be used for inter-species gay fornication.”

Gadreel shrugged as he retook his place next to Sam. “I’m not so sure. When you collected our bags, our hostess told me they had gay honeymooners last month.”

“I want my cookie now.” Sam mumbled before the effects grave-digging, road-tripping, 31 hours awake, and some pretty awesome sex dragged him into slumber land.

Much later that night, under the span of the Milky Way, Sam guided his angel along the paths of Cherry Springs State Park. They had wrapped up warm, both sporting beanies supplied by their concerned B&B hosts. Reaching the Dark Sky area, Sam preened to hear a gasp of awe from his partner.

“Sam.” Gadreel filled his name with wonder.

“Thought you’d like it.” Sam smiled, as they stood apart from a few couples and individuals with various models of telescopes. “It is stunning.”

“Our Father’s creation in all its glory.”

Sam spread an army blanket he had pinched from the Impala and they lay there gazing up at the beauty of the night sky as nature intended it. 

“There, Sam, a shooting star, a blazing meteorite.”

Sam swiveled his head, catching the tail of the shooting star before it disappeared. “Wow. We should make a wish.”

“A wish?”

“Yeah….. y’know. Wish upon a star and your dreams come true and all that.”

“This is a human tradition?”

“Yeah, guess so.”

“Then we should do it.” Gadreel insisted.

Feeling a tad childish, Sam shrugged. “You first.”

With great solemnity Gadreel spoke. “I wish you happiness.”

“Right back at ya.” Sam laughed, though he was deeply touched that Gadreel would use his play-wish on him.

“No, Sam, you cannot copy my intention. You must make your own wish.”

“You’re no fun.” Sam teased.

He took his time, watching the gradual eternal movement of the heavens.

“This.” Sam pronounced finally. “I wish for this now…. For so long, Dean and me, we were islands… we… I couldn’t imagine a long term commitment … hell, successful relationship… and god knows I did try… I even pushed Dean to Lisa… but hunting… our lives… it doesn’t lend itself to … to what we have, I guess. To what you and me, the most unlikely couple…. But who cares, we work… we get each other… and you get me, more than anyone, and I guess, this is me saying I love you, and my wish is to keep this, to hold onto it… hold onto you.”

“Sam…” Gadreel said softly.

“This is where Dean would pop his head up and tell me to bin the chick flick, but you asked, and that’s it, my wish.” The hunter ducked his head, but his angel would not permitted his sudden shyness. 

Gadreel used his fingertips to lift Sam’s chin and meeting his eyes under starlight he vowed. “And I love you, Sam Winchester, with all my Grace.”

When they next parted embracing lips, Sam couldn’t help a chuckle. “If Dean could see us now, he’d call us total saps.”

Gadreel harrumphed. “You might consider that he and my brother are no doubt enjoying their own version of romantic stargazing right now.”

And that thought made the night even more golden for Sam, as he squeezed his angel’s hand and in unison they tilted their heads to the jeweled panorama above.


End file.
